‘Yes,’ said Colonel Bantry, ‘what about him? He seems the suspicious person to my mind. What do you know about him?’

‘It is what I knew about him that put him completely out of court—at any rate at the time,’ said Sir Henry gravely. ‘You see, Charles Templeton was one of my own men.’

‘Oh!’ said Colonel Bantry, considerably taken aback.

‘Yes. I wanted to have someone on the spot, and at the same time I didn’t want to cause talk in the village. Rosen really needed a secretary. I put Templeton on the job. He’s a gentleman, he speaks German fluently, and he’s altogether a very able fellow.’

‘But, then, which do you suspect?’ asked Mrs Bantry in a bewildered tone. ‘They all seem so—well, impossible.’

‘Yes, so it appears. But you can look at the thing from another angle. Fräulein Greta was his niece and a very lovely girl, but the War has shown us time and again that brother can turn against sister, or father against son and so on, and the loveliest and gentlest of young girls did some of the most amazing things. The same thing applies to Gertrud, and who knows what other forces might be at work in her case. A quarrel, perhaps, with her master, a growing resentment all the more lasting because of the long faithful years behind her. Elderly women of that class can be amazingly bitter sometimes. And Dobbs? Was he right outside it because he had no connection with the family? Money will do much. In some way Dobbs might have been approached and bought.

‘For one thing seems certain: Some message or some order must have come from outside. Otherwise why five months’ immunity? No, the agents of the society must have been at work. Not yet sure of Rosen’s perfidy, they delayed till the betrayal had been traced to him beyond any possible doubt. And then, all doubts set aside, they must have sent their message to the spy within the gates—the message that said, “Kill”.’

‘How nasty!’ said Jane Helier, and shuddered.

‘But how did the message come? That was the point I tried to elucidate—the one hope of solving my problem. One of those four people must have been approached or communicated with in some way. There would be no delay—I knew that—as soon as the command came, it would be carried out. That was a peculiarity of the Schwartze Hand.

‘I went into the question, went into it in a way that will probably strike you as being ridiculously meticulous. Who had come to the cottage that morning? I eliminated nobody. Here is the list.’

He took an envelope from his pocket and selected a paper from its contents.

‘The butcher, bringing some neck of mutton. Investigated and found correct.

‘The grocer’s assistant, bringing a packet of cornflour, two pounds of sugar, a pound of butter, and a pound of coffee. Also investigated and found correct.

‘The postman, bringing two circulars for Fräulein Rosen, a local letter for Gertrud, three letters for Dr Rosen, one with a foreign stamp and two letters for Mr Templeton, one also with a foreign stamp.’