rate of thirty miles an hour, perhaps. That's Broad
Law to the south of us, as I make it out."

"But why descend at all?"

"Because it sticks in my head that some one in the crowd called you by a
name that wasn't Ducie; and by a title, for that matter, which didn't
sound like 'Viscount.' I took it at the time for a constable's trick;
but I begin to have my strong doubts."

The fellow was dangerous. I stooped nonchalantly on pretence of picking
up a plaid; for the air had turned bitterly cold of a sudden.

"Mr. Byfield, a word in your private ear, if you will."

"As you please," said he, dropping the valve-string.

We leaned together over the breastwork of the car. "If I mistake not," I
said, speaking low, "the name was Champdivers."

He nodded.

"The gentleman who raised that foolish but infernally risky cry was my
own cousin, the Viscount de Saint-Yves. I give you my word of honour to
that." Observing that this staggered him, I added, mighty slily, "I
suppose it doesn't occur to you now that the whole affair was a game,
for a friendly wager?"

"No," he answered brutally, "it doesn't. And what's more, it won't go
down."

"In that respect," said I, with a sudden change of key, "it resembles
your balloon. But I admire the obstinacy of your suspicions; since, as a
matter of fact, I am Champdivers."

"The mur----"

"Certainly not. I killed the man in fair duel."

"Ha!" he eyed me with sour distrust. "That is what you have to prove."

"Man alive, you don't expect me to demonstrate it up here, by the simple
apparatus of ballooning?"

"There is no talk of 'up here,'" said he, and reached for the
valve-string.

"Say 'down there,' then. Down there it is no business of the accused to
prove his innocence. By what I have heard of the law, English or Scotch,
the boot is on the other leg. But I'll tell you what I _can_ prove. I
can prove, sir, that I have been a deal in your company of late; that I
supped with you and Mr. Dalmahoy no longer ago than Wednesday. You may
put it that we three are here together again by accident; that you never
suspected me; that my invasion of your machine was a complete surprise
to you, and, so far as you were concerned, wholly fortuitous. But ask
yourself what any intelligent jury is likely to make of that
cock-and-bull story." Mr. Byfield was visibly shaken. "Add to this," I
proceeded, "that you have to explain Sheepshanks; to confess that you
gulled the public by advertising a lo