ht, and Armitage
stood in the dark, watching him with a mixture of curiosity and
something, too, of humor. Then he spoke--in French--in a tone that
imitated the cool irony he had noted in Durand's tone:

"A few murders more or less! But Von Stroebel was hardly a fair mark,
dearest Jules!"

With this he sent the chair clattering down the steps, where it struck
Jules Chauvenet's legs with a force that carried him howling lustily
backward to the second landing.

Armitage turned and sped down the front stairway, hearing renewed clamor
from the rear and cries of rage and pain from the second story. In
fumbling for the front door he found a hat, and, having lost his own,
placed it upon his head, drew his inverness about his shoulders, and went
quickly out. A moment later he slipped the catch in the wall door and
stepped into the boulevard.

The stars were shining among the flying clouds overhead and he drew deep
breaths of the freshened air into his lungs as he walked back to the
Monte Rosa. Occasionally he laughed quietly to himself, for he still
grasped tightly in his hand, safe under his coat, the envelope which
Chauvenet had carried so carefully concealed; and several times Armitage
muttered to himself:

"A few murders, more or less!"

At the hotel he changed his clothes, threw the things from his
dressing-table into a bag, and announced his departure for Paris by
the night express.

As he drove to the railway station he felt for his cigarette case, and
discovered that it was missing. The loss evidently gave him great
concern, for he searched and researched his pockets and opened his bags
at the station to see if he had by any chance overlooked it, but it was
not to be found.

His annoyance at the loss was balanced--could he have known it--by the
interest with which, almost before the wall door had closed upon him, two
gentlemen--one of them still in his shirt sleeves and with a purple lump
over his forehead--bent over a gold cigarette case in the dark house on
the Boulevard Froissart. It was a pretty trinket, and contained, when
found on the kitchen floor, exactly four cigarettes of excellent Turkish
tobacco. On one side of it was etched, in shadings of blue and white
enamel, a helmet, surmounted by a falcon, poised for flight, and,
beneath, the motto _Fide non armis_. The back bore in English script,
written large, the letters _F.A._

The men stared at each other wonderingly for an instant, then both leaped