Part 167

After a while he rose, drew a chair to the table, and Philippa seated herself. Leaning there on one elbow, her cheek on her palm, she opened the book she had remembered and gazed at the golden picture.

Warner watched her for a while, then went quietly out and along the corridor to the hall that crossed it. Madame de Moidrey's maid announced him.

"May I come in a moment, Ethra?"

"Certainly, Jim. It's all right; I'm in negligee." And as he entered: "Where in the world did you find that soiled old pillowcase?"

"Did you discover the device embroidered on it?"

She pointed to a volume lying on her dressing table:

"Yes. The arms of Chatillon-Montreal are embroidered on it. It's rather a strange thing, too, because the family is extinct."

"What?"

"Certainly. As soon as I found out what the device was, I remembered all about the family. Sit down there, if you want to know. You don't mind Rose doing my hair?"

"You're as pretty as a picture, Ethra, and you are perfectly aware of it. Go on and tell me, please."

"It's a well-known family, Jim--or was. The early ones were Crusaders and Templars, I believe. Their history ever since has been mixed up with affairs oriental.

"There was a De Chatillon who had a row with Saladin, and I think was slain by that redoubtable Moslem. The daughter of that De Chatillon married a paladin of some sort who took her name and her father's quarterings and added a blue fanion and a human head to them; also three yaks' tails on a spear support the arms. Why, I don't remember. It's in that book over there, I suppose.

"Anyway, it seems that some king or other--Saint Louis, I believe--created the first son of this paladin and of the daughter of De Chatillon a Prince of Marmora with the Island of Tenedos as his domain.

"Of course one of the Sultans drove them out. Fifty years ago the family was living in Tours, poor as mice, proud as Lucifer of their Principality of Marmora and Tenedos--realms which no Chatillon, of course, had ever been permitted to occupy since the Crusades.

"The family is extinct--some tragedy, I believe, finished the last of the Chatillons. I don't remember when, but it probably is all recorded in that book over there."

"May I borrow it?"

"Certainly. But where in the world did that exceedingly soiled pillowcase come from?"

"Don't have it washed just yet, Ethra. A man discovered it in a safe which was the private property of that scoundrel, Constantine Wildresse.

"When your hair is done, will you please go into the sitting room on my corridor? Philippa has something to show you."

The Countess looked at him curiously as he took his leave.

"Please hurry with my hair," she said to her maid.

*CHAPTER XXXVI*

As Warner returned to his own room, two thoughts persisted and dominated all others: Philippa's parents were known to Wildresse; Wildresse must be found.

Somehow or other he had already taken it for granted that Philippa's father or mother, or perhaps both parents, had been engaged in some capacity in the service of this family called De Chatillon. There was no particular reason for him to believe this; her parents might have been the friends of these people. But the idea of some business association between the two families seemed to obsess him--he could not explain why--and with this idea filling his mind he entered his room, seated himself by the open window, and picked up the packages of personal papers belonging to Wildresse and taken from his safe by Asticot.

There were three packets of documents, each packet tied separately with pink tape and sealed twice.

Running over the first packet like a pack of cards, he found that every paper had been endorsed on the outside and dated, although the dates were not arranged in proper sequence.

On the first document which he read without unsealing the packet was written, "Affaire Schnaeble, 1887." On the next he read, when he parted the papers, "Affaire de Clermont-Ferrand, 1888." The next, however, bore the inscription, "Affaire Panitza" and bore an earlier date. Beneath this caption was written: "Prince Ferdinand and the Oberanovitch Dynasty. Dossier of Draga. The Jockey Club and King Milan. Queen Natalie and her dossier. The Grand Duke Cyril."

He turned over document after document, all bearing endorsements, but the majority of the captions meant nothing to him, such as "Abdul Hamid and Marmora," "The Greco-Italian Proposition for an International Gendarmerie," "Ali Pasha, Said Pasha, and the Archives of Tenedos," "The Hohenzollern-Benedetti Affair."