t? After that, Florence, this: either the smash will take
place in such a way that your body will not even be in sight, if any one
should dream of coming here to look for you, or else it will be partly
visible, in which case I shall at once cut and destroy the cords with
which you are tied.

"What will the law think then? Simply that Florence Levasseur, a fugitive
from justice, hid herself in a grotto which fell upon her and crushed
her. That's all. A few prayers for the rash creature's soul, and not
another word.

"As for me--as for me, when my work is done and my sweetheart dead--I
shall pack my traps, carefully remove all the traces of my coming, smooth
every inch of the trampled grass, jump into my motor car, sham death for
a little while, and then put in a sensational claim for the hundred
millions."

He gave a little chuckle, took two or three puffs at his cigarette, and
added, calmly:

"I shall claim the hundred millions and I shall get them. That's the
prettiest part of it. I shall claim them because I'm entitled to them;
and I explained to you just now before Master Lupin came interfering,
how, from the moment that you were dead, I had the most undeniable legal
right to them. And I shall get them, because it is physically impossible
to bring up the least sort of proof against me."

He moved closer.

"There's not a charge that can hurt me. Suspicions, yes, moral
presumptions, clues, anything you like, but not a scrap of material
evidence. Nobody knows me. One person has seen me as a tall man, another
as a short man. My very name is unknown. All my murders have been
committed anonymously. All my murders are more like suicides, or can be
explained as suicides.

"I tell you the law is powerless. With Lupin dead, and Florence Levasseur
dead, there's no one to bear witness against me. Even if they arrested
me, they would have to discharge me in the end for lack of evidence. I
shall be branded, execrated, hated, and cursed; my name will stink in
people's nostrils, as if I were the greatest of malefactors. But I shall
possess the hundred millions; and with that, pretty one, I shall possess
the friendship of all decent men!

"I tell you again, with Lupin and you gone, it's all over. There's
nothing left, nothing but some papers and a few little things which I
have been weak enough to keep until now, in this pocket-book here, and
which would be enough and more than enough to cost me my head, if I did
not inten