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254 lessly up and down the room. Wrayson was busy at the telephone, and carried on a conversation for some moments in French. Directly he had finished, Barnes turned upon him.

"Whom were you talking to?" he demanded.

"A friend of yours," he answered. "I have asked her to come round for a few minutes."

"A friend of mine?"

"The Baroness!"

The colour burned once more in his cheeks. He looked down at his attire with dissatisfaction.

"I didn't want to see her again just yet," he muttered. Wrayson smiled.

"She won't look at your clothes," he remarked, "and I rather want her here."

Barnes was suddenly suspicious.

"What for?" he demanded. "What has she got to do with the affair? I won't have strangers present."

"My young friend," Wrayson said, "I may just as well warn you that I think you are going to be disappointed. I am almost certain that I know the contents of that packet. You will find that it consists, as I told you before, not of securities at all, but simply a few old letters."

Barnes' eyes narrowed.

"Whatever they are," he said, "they meant a couple of thousand a year to Morry, and they were worth his life to somebody! How do you account for that, eh?"

"You want the truth?" Wrayson asked.

"Yes!"

"Your brother was a blackmailer!"

The breath came through Barnes' teeth with a little