ast? These are troubled times. It is a wise state to-day that
knows its own leaders. Can you not imagine a dreadful sudden menace,
not of men and guns but of _brains_ and _capital_?"

"You mean," said Dunbar slowly, "that 'The Scorpion' may be getting
people out of the way who might interfere with this rising or invasion
or whatever it is?"

"Just as 'Mr. King' accumulated material for it," interjected the
Assistant Commissioner. "It is a bold conception, M. Max, and it
raises the case out of the ordinary category and invests it with
enormous international importance."

All were silent for a time, Stuart, Dunbar and the Commissioner
watching the famous Frenchman as he sat there, arrayed in the latest
fashion of Saville Row, yet Gallic to his finger-tips and in every
gesture. It was almost impossible at times to credit the fact that a
Parisian was speaking, for the English of Gaston Max was flawless
except that he spoke with a faint American accent. Then, suddenly, a
gesture, an expletive, would betray the Frenchman.

But such betrayals never escaped him when, in one of his inimitable
disguises, he penetrated to the purlieu of Whitechapel, to the dens of
Limehouse. Then he was the perfect Hooligan, as, mingling with the
dangerous thieves of Paris, he was the perfect Apache. It was an
innate gift of mimicry which had made him the greatest investigator
of his day. He could have studied Chinese social life for six months
and thereupon have become a mandarin whom his own servants would never
have suspected to be a "foreign barbarian." It was pure genius, as
opposed to the brilliant efficiency of Dunbar.

But in the heart of the latter, as he studied Gaston Max and realized
the gulf that separated them, there was nothing but generous
admiration of a master; yet Dunbar was no novice, for by a process of
fine deductive reasoning he had come to the conclusion, as has
appeared, that Gaston Max had been masquerading as a cabman and that
the sealed letter left with Dr. Stuart had been left as a lure. By one
of those tricks of fate which sometimes perfect the plans of men but
more often destroy them, the body of "Le Balafre" had been so
disfigured during the time that it had been buffeted about in the
Thames that it was utterly unrecognizable and indescribable. But even
the disk had not deceived Dunbar. He had seen in it another ruse of
his brilliant confrere, and his orders to the keeper of the mortuary
to admit no one withou