simple little girl still—and right well did she play the part.
Now, when you have looked for something really deep and surprising in a puzzle, it does not please you to find that its solution is plain enough for a schoolboy. For the matter of that, once I saw the ball spinning in the Château de l'Épée, the only thing that remained for me to know was the name of madame's partner in the deal. That she had a partner, probably the man who kept bank, was certain. They went shares, I said, in what they could win from the pigeons they had caged. Probably, too, the thing was square enough, or an old bird like Marmontel would not be throwing his money away so cheerfully. Tricks would not pay in that house of rooks. If my master walked out of the château a beggar, he would have his own luck to blame. And that he would walk out a beggar, I felt sure from the start.
I had come to this conclusion, standing in the park of the château, and smoking my pipe under the shadow of a great elm-tree on the lawn before the drawing-room windows. It was not a conclusion to put me in good spirits, or to send me to bed in a cheerful mood—and so far as that goes, I found myself presently thinking very much about it, and strolling through the ground as I did so. For one thing, you see—money to be made or money to be lost, I saw no chance of my coming into the business. If Sir Nicolas was bitten both by the woman
