“Well,” declared Hamilton, “so well has the Baron kept the secret that I have never had any suspicion until this moment.  By Jove! the invention of the Whispers was certainly a clever mode of preserving the secret, for nobody cares deliberately to court disaster and death, especially among a superstitious populace like the villagers here and the Hungarian peasantry.”

Both Gabrielle and her lover expressed their astonishment, the latter remarking how cleverly the weird legend of the Whispers invented by Sir Henry had been made to fit historical fact.

* * * * *

When the eight o’clock train from Stirling stopped at Auchterarder Station that evening, a tall, well-dressed man alighted, and inquired his way to the police-station.  The porter knew by his accent that he was a Londoner, but did not dream that he was “a gentleman from Scotland Yard.”

Half an hour later, after a chat with the rural inspector, the pair went along to the cell behind the small village police-station in order that the stranger should read over to the prisoner the warrant he had brought with him from London—­the application of the French police for the arrest and extradition of Felix Gerlach, alias Krail, alias Benoist, for the wilful murder of Edna Mary Bryant in the Forest of Pontarme, near Chantilly.

The inspector had related to the London detective the dramatic scene up at Glencardine that day, and the officer of the Criminal Investigation Department walked along to the cell much interested to see what manner of man was this, who was even more bold and ingenious in his criminal methods than many with whom his profession brought him daily into contact.  He had hoped that he himself would have the credit of making the arrest, but found that the man wanted had already been apprehended on the charge of burglary at Glencardine.

The inspector unlocked the door and threw it open, but next instant the startling truth became plain.

Felix Krail lay dead upon the flagstones.  He had taken his life by poison—­probably the same poison he had placed in the wine at the fatal picnic—­rather than face his accuser and bear his just punishment.

* * * * *

Many months have now passed.  A good deal has occurred since that never-to-be-forgotten day, but it is all quickly related.

James Flockart, unmasked as he has been, never dared to return.  The last heard of him was six months ago, in Honduras, where for the first time in his life he had been compelled to work for his living, and had, three weeks after landing, succumbed to fever.

At Sir Henry’s urgent request, his wife came back to Glencardine a week after the tragic end of Gerlach, and was compelled to make full confession how, under the man’s sinister influence, both she and Flockart had been forced to act.  To her husband she proved beyond all doubt that she had been in complete ignorance of the truth concerning the affair in the Pontarme Forest until long afterwards.  She had at first believed Gabrielle guilty of the deed, but when she learned the truth and saw how deeply she had been implicated it was impossible for her then to withdraw.