life current in his body swept dizzily to his forehead, focusing there
into whirling inferno, but his legs he could always trust. He stepped
to the table and lurched heavily. Mocking, treacherous demon of the
bottle! His legs had failed him. Fiercely he flung out his arm to
regain his balance. It struck a candelabrum, a giant relic of ancient
wood as tall as himself. It toppled and fell with its candled branches
in the fire. Where the log broke a flame shot forth, lapping the dark
wood with avid tongue. With a crackle the age-old wood began to burn.

Carl watched it with a slight smile. It pleased him to watch it burn.
That would hurt Diane, for everything in this beautiful old Spanish
room linked her subtly to her mother. Yes, it would hurt her cruelly.
Beyond, at the other end of the table, stood a mate to the burning
candlestick, doubtless a silent sentry at many a drinking bout of old
when roistering knights gathered about the scarred slab of table-wood
beneath his fingers. A pity though! Artistically the carven thing was
splendid.

Cursing himself for a notional fool, Carl jerked the candlestick from
the fire and beat out the flames. The heavy top snapped off in his
hands. The falling wood disclosed a hollow receptacle below the
branches . . . a charred paper. Well, there was always some insane
whim of Norman Westfall's coming to light somewhere and this doubtless
was one of them.

The paper was very old and yellow, the handwriting unmistakably
foreign. French, was it not? The firelight was too fitful to tell.
Carl switched on the light in the cluster of old iron lanterns above
the table and frowned heavily at the paper. No, it was the precise,
formal English of a foreigner, with here and there a ludicrous error