CHAPTER XLI 

THE COLONEL SPEAKS 

Wrayson glanced at the clock for the twentieth time. 

"I am afraid," he said gravely, "that Mr. Sydney Barnes has been one too many for us." 

"Do you think," Louise asked, "that he has persuaded the girl to give him the packet?" 

"It looks like it," Wrayson confessed. 

Louise frowned. 

"Of course," she said, "I think that you were mad to let her go before. She had the letters here in the room. You would have been perfectly justified in taking them from her." 

"I suppose so," Wrayson assented, doubtfully. "Somehow she seemed to get the upper hand of us towards the end. I think she suspected that some of us knew more than we cared to tell her about--her husband's death." 

Louise shivered a little and remained silent. Wrayson walked to the window and back. 

"To tell you the truth," he said, "I expected some one else here to-night who has failed to turn up." 

"Who is that?" the Baroness asked. 

Wrayson hesitated for a moment and glanced towards Louise. 

"Colonel Fitzmaurice," he said. 

Louise seemed to turn suddenly rigid. She looked at him steadfastly for a moment without speaking. 

"My father," she murmured at last. 

Wrayson nodded. 

"Yes!" he said. 

"But--what has he to do with this?" Louise asked, with her eyes fixed anxiously, almost fearfully, upon his. 

"I went to him for advice," Wrayson said quietly. "He has been always very kind, and I thought it possible that he might be able to help us. He promised to be here at the same hour as the others. Listen! There is the bell at last." 
Where had they been kept?
in the room