"
"Unimportant?" I echoed. "But surely--"
"Unimportant because we don't want to know these things. What we want
to know is how Philip Vantine and this unknown Frenchman were killed.
And that is just the one thing which, I am convinced, neither the man
nor the woman nor Rogers nor anybody else we have come across in this
case can tell us. There's a personality behind all this that we
haven't even suspected yet, and which, I am free to confess, I don't
know how to get at. It puzzles me; it rather frightens me; it's like
a threatening shadow which one can't get hold of."
There was a moment's silence; then, I decided, the time had come for
me to speak.
"Godfrey," I said, "what I am about to tell you is told in
confidence, and must be held in confidence until I give you
permission to use it. Do you agree?"
"Go on," he said, his eyes on my face.
"Well, I believe I know how these two men were killed. Listen."
And I told him in detail the story of the Boule cabinet; I repeated
Vantine's theory of its first ownership; I named the price which he
was ready to pay for it; I described the difference between an
original and a counterpart, and dwelt upon Vantine's assertion that
this was an original of unique and unquestionable artistry.
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