"
Harley and I stared vaguely across at the table. I saw Val Beverley
glancing uneasily in the same direction. Save for the writing materials
and little heap of manuscript, it held only a cup and saucer, a few
sandwiches, and a medicine bottle containing the prescription which Dr.
Rolleston had made up for the invalid.
"I am curious to know what you have written, Madame," declared Harley.
"Yes, you are curious?" she said. "Very well, then, I will tell you,
and afterward you may read if you wish." She turned to me. "You, my
friend," she whispered, and reaching over she laid her jewelled hand
upon my arm, "you have spoken with Ysola de Valera this afternoon, they
tell me?"
"With Mrs. Camber?" I asked, startled. "Yes, that is true."
"Ah, Mrs. Camber," murmured Madame. "I knew her as Ysola de Valera. She
is beautiful, in her golden doll way. You think so?" Then, ere I had
time to reply: "She told you, I suppose, eh?"
"She told me," I replied with a certain embarrassment, "that she had
met you some years ago in Cuba."
"Ah, yes, although _I_ told the fat Inspector it was not so. How
we lie, we women! And of course she told you in what relation I stood
to Juan Menendez?"
"She did not, Madame de Staemer.
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