"Most cordially yours,

"JACQUES CROCHARD,

"L'Invincible!"

I looked up to find Godfrey regarding me with a quizzical smile.

"Of course it's a joke," I said. Then I looked at him again. "Surely,
Godfrey, you don't believe this is genuine!"

"Perhaps we can prove it," he said, quietly. "That is one reason I
came up. Didn't Armand leave a note for you the day he failed to see
you?"

"Yes; on his card; I have it here!" and with trembling fingers, I got
out my pocket-book and drew the card from the compartment in which I
had carefully preserved it.

One glance at it was enough. The pencilled line on the back was
unquestionably written by the same hand which wrote the letter.

"And now you know his name," Godfrey added, tapping the signature
with his finger. "I have been certain from the first that it was he!"

I gazed at the signature without answering. I had, of course, read in
the papers many times of the Gargantuan exploits of Crochard--"The
Invincible," as he loved to call himself, and with good reason. But
his achievements, at least as the papers described them, seemed too
fantastic to be true. I had suspected more than once that he was
merely a figment of the Parisian space-writers, a sort of reserve for
the dull season; or else that he was a kind of scape-goat saddled by
the French police with every crime which proved too much for them.
Now, however, it seemed that Crochard really existed; I held his
letter in my hand; I had even talked with him--and as I remembered
the fascination, the finish, the distinguished culture of M. Felix
Armand, I understood something of the reason of his extraordinary
reputation.

"There can be no two opinions about him," said Godfrey, reaching out
his hand for the letter and sinking back in his chair to contemplate
it. "Crochard is one of the greatest criminals who ever lived, full
of imagination and resource, and with a sense of humour most acute. I
have followed his career for years--it was this fact that gave me my
first clue. He killed a man once before, just as he killed this last
one. The man had betrayed him to the police. He was never betrayed
again."

"What a fiend he must be!" I said, with a shudder.

But Godfrey shook his head quickly.

"Don't get that idea of him," he protested earnestly. "Up to the time
of his arrival in New York, he had never killed any man except that
traitor. Him he had a certain right to kill--according to thieves'
et