self. So you offered your services, and your more acute brain put
them up to a dodge they would never have thought of. It was necessary
for your purpose that you should figure as a respectable man, so you
had cards printed in the name of Anatole Labergerie, and addressed
letters to yourself under that same name at Morris Siegelman's
restaurant. I do not know yet where you obtained the car, but I shall
know to-morrow--the fact is immaterial now. What is of real importance
is the method whereby you humbugged the janitor at Mr. Hunter's office
by pretending that you had been sent there by Mr. Labergerie because
the car was at liberty somewhat earlier than was expected, and the
unfortunate journalist took it as a compliment, drove to his rooms,
changed his clothes, and returned to the office, thus playing into your
hands, because the car sent to his order by Mr. Labergerie was thereby
prevented from picking him up at the appointed time. It was shrewd of
you to guess that a busy man on the staff of a newspaper would be glad
to utilize an automobile placed unexpectedly at his disposal, and fate
played into your hands by the delay in issuing the duplicate marriage
license, which he had promised de Courtois to obtain from the City
Hall."

"Sir, I knew nothing of any marriage license."

"Probably not. You were concerned only with taking your confederates'
money, and posing as the clever brain of the outfit. But I imagine,
and not another word shall I say, that they overreached you a bit when
they knifed Mr. Hunter."

Lamotte, to describe him by the name under which he figured in the
annals of the crime, stretched out his hands in a gesture of emphatic
protest.

"No matter what becomes of me," he said eagerly, "I ask you to believe
that I did not even know they had killed Mr. Hunter until I saw the
blood on the panel when I took them to Market Street."

"So. You have been slow to adopt the lead I offered you. But why, in
God's name, did they stab the man? That could hardly have been their
deliberate plan."

"It was a sort of accident. So they said. They really meant to force
him into the car, and overpower him. The scheme was to bring him to
Market Street and keep him there until----"

He hesitated. He had given up hope for himself, but he stopped short
of introducing other names into prominence.

"Until the _Switzerland_ had reached New York, with Count Ladislas
Vassilan and the English lord on board."