Page:Harris Dickson--The black wolf's breed.djvu/175

Rh out; I had the man detained in the city where he is at your command. He suspects nothing, though fretful at the restraint."

"Very good. And the other?"

"Yes, here it is. You see this has been so arranged that the Duke quite naturally selected Menezes to bear these dispatches. You may remind him that Menezes is a brother of the man Perrault, whom he had hanged some years ago. Here is the man's history, which you can look over at leisure. The Duke has forgotten all this in his impatience to remedy the Yvard fiasco. It will serve, however, to make him think you even more clever and devoted to him."

I listened closely at the name "Yvard."

"Well, now so far so good. And the question of finance? That is of more importance."

"And of more difficulty. The Madame often dabbles herself in these dealings involving money, and she is harder to deceive. However she is not accurate at figures, clever though she be otherwise. Look over this; this calculation. See, there is a simple transposition of an item, which results in a difference of near ten thousand livres. It appears there to have been made by the money lender for his greater gain. You can study this copy before the Duke comes. Then you will be quite prepared to point out this error and make the correction. Here is his copy which he will sign."

"Ah, good," she said looking over the memorandum he had given her of the amounts, with the correct calculations all neatly carried out.