to himself.

"It was," said Monsieur Dupont. "He admitted to you on the night of the
crime that he had known her in America years ago. And here we have a
curious study in conflicting emotions. When he first met her, he had
already killed two beautiful women. She was certainly more beautiful
than either--yet he was able to associate with her on intimate terms for
a considerable time, and even to tear himself away from her at last,
without adding her to the victims of his madness. How was he able to do
that? It was undoubtedly because he loved her. He had not loved either
of the other two, so there had been no opposing emotion to his mania.
But he loved Christine Manderson, and love was capable of holding the
madness in check, because love, in its full strength, is the strongest
of all human emotions. Love is stronger than madness, and ten times
stronger than sanity. But after he left her the love faded to a certain
extent, while the madness increased. Therefore, when he was suddenly
confronted with her extraordinary beauty a few nights ago, the love that
had faded was unable to restrain the madness that had not. And he killed
her."

"My God!" exclaimed Copplestone, "to think that he stood there with us
over the body he had torn--and even lifted it into my arms--without so
much as a quiver."

"He was not capable of remorse or regret," Monsieur Dupont returned. "If
he had been, he would have killed himself long ago." He paused. "There
remain now a few points of my own part in this affair to tell you, and
we will then ask the doctor for his statement."

"Before you do that," said Doctor Lessing, bluntly, "I, for one, am
curious to know who you really are, and how you came to take such a
large hand in the whole business."

"My connection with the whole business," replied Monsieur Dupont, "is a
long story. I have already told it to Inspector Fay, and I will tell it
again with pleasure when all the more important statements have been
made. As regards myself----"

Inspector Fay took upon himself the continuation of the sentence.

"Up to a few years ago," he said, "Monsieur Dupont was, under a certain
pseudonym, the most brilliant member of the French Secret Service--and
was, in fact, admitted to have no equal in the whole of Europe."

"A gross exaggeration, my friends," protested Monsieur Dupont. He waved
the inspector to silence. "When I came to London last week," he told
them, "I came knowing that John Tranter had ki