“You will find her, you mean? But she is in South America. And by the time we get there⁠—long before, she will be dead⁠—and God knows how and in what horrible way she will have died.”

“No, no, you do not understand. She is safe and well. She has never been in their hands for one instant.”

“But I got a cable from Bronsen?”

“No, no, you did not. You may have got a cable from South America signed Bronsen⁠—that is a very different matter. Tell me, has it never occurred to you that an organization of this kind, with ramifications all over the world, might easily strike at us through the little girl, Cinderella, whom you love so well?”

“No, never,” I replied.