eatest absurdity!" exclaimed the captain. "Ralph told me
that a man, evidently once one of that band of outlaws in Peru, had been
arrested for assaulting Cheditafa, and this charge must be part of his
scheme of vengeance for that arrest. I could instantly prove everything
that is necessary to know about me if my banker, Mr. Wraxton, were here.
I have sent for him, but he has not come. I have not a moment to waste
discussing this matter." The captain gazed anxiously toward the door,
and for a few moments the three men stood in silence.

The situation was a peculiar one. The professor thought of sending to the
Hotel Grenade, but he hesitated. He said to himself: "The lady's
testimony would be of no avail. If he is the man the bandit says he is,
of course she does not know it. His conduct has been very strange, and
for a long time she certainly knew very little about him. I don't see how
even his banker could become surety for him if he were here, and he
doesn't seem inclined to come. Anybody may have a bank-account."

The professor stood looking on the ground. The captain looked at him,
and, by that power to read the thoughts of others which an important
emergency often gives to a man, he read, or believed he did, the thoughts
of Barre. He did not blame the man for his doubts. Any one might have
such doubts. A stranger coming to France with a cargo of gold must expect
suspicion, and here was more--a definite charge.

At this moment there came a message from the banking house: Mr. Wraxton
had gone to Brussels that morning. Fuguet did not live in Paris, and the
captain had never seen him. There were clerks whom he had met in
Marseilles, but, of course, they could only say that he was the man known
as Captain Horn.

The captain ground his teeth, and then, suddenly turning, he interrupted
the conversation between the magistrate and Barre. He addressed the
latter and asked, "Will you tell me what this officer has been saying
about me?"

"He says," answered Barre, "that he believes you know nobody in Paris
except the party at the Hotel Grenade, and that, of course, you may have
deceived them in regard to your identity--that they have been here a long
time, and you have been absent, and you have not been referred to by
them, which seems strange."

"Has he not found out that Wraxton knows me?"

"He says," answered Barre, "that you have not visited that banking house
since you came to Paris, and that seems strange also. Eve