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After all, reflected the Baron wryly, in this damnable muddle he must still use Themar. To antagonize him now would be foolhardy.
Some of the message, to be sure, was missing for Themar had been interrupted and some of it unintelligible. But clear and cold before his fevered eyes lay the words which marked him irrevocably for the knife of a hired assassin. There was no suggestion of sealing his lips with gold, as in a drunken moment he had suggested in his letter. The seal of death was safer than the seal of gold.
"And when Themar followed to warn me Poynter beat him brutally," he went on fiercely, "beat him and sent him in a dirty barge to a distant city. All the while when I fancied my disguise impenetrable, he was laughing in his sleeve, for he is as clever as he is unscrupulous. He was even meeting his chief in a Kentucky woods to report. Tregar admitted it.
"You would not have me break mine?" "Why," cried Diane, "did you fight with Themar in the forest? Why have you night after night watched my camp? Oh, Philip, surely, surely, you can tell me!" Philip sighed. With his infernal habit of mystery and pledges, the Baron had made this very hard for him. "None of these things," he said quietly, "I may tell you or anyone."
By spying before he had sailed, Themar added, at a question from Carl, he had learned of the cipher. "You read the paper of course when you stole it from my desk?" "There was a noise," said Themar dully, his face bitter; "I ran for the street. Later the paper was gone." "What were Tregar's intentions about the paper?" Themar chewed nervously at his lips. "His Excellency spoke to me of a paper.
"Here is a gentleman," he explained, "whom I discovered lurking about my camp a while ago. He showed me his knife and I've mussed him up a bit." The mule-driver bent over Themar and sharply scanned the dark, foreign face. "One o' them damned black-and-tans, eh?" he growled. "They're too ready with their knives. What ye goin' to do with him?"
"Why," insisted the older man, "have you seen fit to conduct yourself with the irrationality of a madman by trundling a music-machine about the country and making love to a girl you tried in a moment of fright and frenzy to kill?" "I I lost my head," said the Prince with an effort. "It it seemed at first that she must die. The other, I thought to myself, I will leave to Themar and the Baron.
"Days back," rumbled the Baron thoughtfully, "I assigned to Themar the task of discovering the identity of the man who er acquired a certain roadster of mine and who, I felt fairly certain, would not lose track of Miss Westfall but Themar, Poynter, came to grief " "Yes?" said Philip coolly. "You interest me exceedingly."
"And Themar?" inquired Philip coldly. "He was not injured so badly as I feared," admitted Tregar slowly. "His accident," commented Philip quietly, "was to say the least coincidental and convenient." "Just what do you mean?" "Just why," begged Philip icily, "did you wish me to intrude further upon the hospitality of Miss Westfall?" "There was an errand," reminded the Baron blandly.
"No," said Diane honestly. "Why fuss now?" "Tregar must have suspected. I met his his spy in the forest and we quarreled wildly. He tried to kill me but the bullet went wild." Again his glance wavered but the lying words came smoothly. "My servant, Themar, leaped and stabbed him in the shoulder " "No! No!" cried Diane. "Not that not that!"
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