Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/362

342 A MATTER OF MILLIONS "Tell me one thing," I said. "Did Armida possess any trinket in the form of a little enamelled cross — like a miniature cross of cavaliere?"

"Yes; I gave it to her. I found it on the floor at the Mansion House, where I was engaged as odd waiter for a banquet. I know I ought to have given it up to the Lord Mayor's servants, but it was such a pretty little thing that I was tempted to keep it. It probably had fallen from the coat of one of the diplomatists dining there."

I was silent. The faint suspicion that Oberg had been at that spot was now entirely removed. The only clue I had was satisfactorily accounted for.

"Why do you ask, signor commendatore?" he added.

"Because the cross was found at the spot, and was believed to have been dropped by the assassin," I said.

The police had, it seemed, succeeded in discovering the unfortunate woman after all, and had found that she was his wife.

"You know a man named Leithcourt?" I asked a few moments later. "Now, tell the truth. In this affair, Olinto, our interests are mutual, are they not?"

He nodded, after a moment's hesitation.

"And you know also a man named Archer — who is sometime known as Hornby, or Woodroffe — as well as a friend of his called Chater."

"Si, signore," he said. "I have met them all — to my regret."