Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/238

 bearing the Paris post-mark. But impressed upon the paper I discovered a second post-mark, which, by means of a simple process, and the use of a magnifying glass, I made out to be Bow, East!”

“What!”

“Do you understand? This letter, and others doubtless, had been enclosed in an envelope and despatched to Paris from Bow, East? In short, Mrs. Leroux wrote those letters before she left London; Soames never posted them, but handed them over to some representative of Mr. King; this other, in turn, posted them to Madame Jean in Paris! Morbleu! these are clever rogues! This which I was fortunate enough to discover had been on top, you understand, this billet, and the outer envelope being very heavily stamped, that below retained the impress of the post-mark.”

“Poor Leroux!” said Cumberly again, with suppressed emotion. “That unsuspecting, kindly soul has been drawn into the meshes of this conspiracy. How they have been wound around him, until.”…

“He knows the truth about his wife?” asked Max, suddenly glancing up at the physician, “that she is not in Paris?”

“I, myself, broke the painful news to him,” replied Cumberly—“after a consultation with Miss Ryland and my daughter. I considered it my duty to tell him, but I cannot disguise from myself that it hastened, if it did not directly occasion, his breakdown.”