There was a sharp click, and, at the side of the table, a piece of the metal inlay fell forward.

“That is the handle,” said the veiled lady, and, without an instant’s hesitation, while my heart stood still, she grasped it and drew out a shallow drawer.  “Ah!” and, casting aside the ridiculous gauntlet, she caught up the packet of papers which lay within.  Then, with an effort, she controlled herself, slipped off the ribbon which held the packet together, and spread out before my eyes ten or twelve envelopes.  “You will see that they are only letters, Mr. Lester,” she said in a low voice, “and I assure you that they belong to me.”

“I believe you, madame,” I said, and with a sigh of relief that was almost a sob, she rebound the packet and slipped it into the bosom of her gown.  “There is one thing,” I added, “which madame can, perhaps, do for me.”

“I shall be most happy!” she breathed.

“As I have told Mr. Hornblower,” I continued, “two men died in this room the day before yesterday.  Or, rather, it was in the room beyond that they died; but we believed it was here they received the wounds which caused death.  It seems that we were wrong in this.”

“Undoubtedly,” she agreed.  “There has never been any such weird mechanism as you described connected with that drawer, Mr. Lester.  At least, not since I have had it.  There is a legend, you know, that the cabinet was made for Madame de Montespan.”

She was talking more freely now; evidently a great load had been lifted from her—­perhaps I did not guess how great!

“Mr. Vantine suspected as much,” I said.  “He was a connoisseur of furniture, and there was something about this cabinet which told him it had belonged to the Montespan.  He was examining it at the time he died.  What the other man was doing, we do not know, but if we could identify him, it might help us.”

“You have not identified him?”

“We know nothing whatever about him, except that he was presumably a Frenchman, and that he arrived on La Touraine, two days ago.”

“That is the boat upon which I came over.”

“It has occurred to me, madame, that you may have seen him—­that he may even be known to you.”

“What was his name?”

“The card he sent in to Mr. Vantine bore the name of Theophile d’Aurelle.”

She shook her head.

“I have never before heard that name, Mr. Lester.”

“We believe it to have been an assumed name,” I said; “but perhaps you will recognise this photograph,” and I drew it from my pocket and handed it to her.

She took it, looked at it, and again shook her head.  Then she looked at it again, turning aside and raising her veil in order to see it better.

“There seems to be something familiar about the face,” she said, at last, “as though I might have seen the man somewhere.”

“On the boat, perhaps,” I suggested, but I knew very well it was not on the boat, since the man had crossed in the steerage.