the first few minutes. But you gave the
game away a little, my dear Guillot, when you allowed your quarry to
come and gaze even from the shadows of his box at the woman he adored."

"Where is--he?" Guillot faltered.

"He is on his way back to his country home," Peter replied. "I think
that he will be cured of his infatuation for Mademoiselle. The assassins
whom you planted in that room are by this time in Bow Street. The price
which others beside you knew, my dear Guillot, was placed upon that
unfortunate young man's head will not pass this time into your pocket.
For the rest----"

"The rest is of no consequence," Guillot interrupted, bowing. "I admit
that I am vanquished. As for those gentlemen there," he added, waving
his hand towards the two men, who had taken a step forward, "I have a
little oath which is sacred to me concerning them. I take the liberty,
therefore, to admit myself defeated, Monsieur le Baron, and to take my
leave."

No one was quick enough to interfere. They had only a glimpse of him as
he stood there with the revolver pressed to his temple, an impression of
a sharp report, of Guillot staggering back as the revolver slipped from
his fingers on to the floor. Even his death cry was stifled. They
carried him away without any fuss, and Peter was just in time, after
all, to see the finish of the second act of the ballet. The sham
Monsieur Guillot still smirked at the sham Louise, but the box by his
side was empty.

"Is it over?" Violet asked breathlessly.

"It is over," Peter answered.

It was, after all, an unrecorded tragedy. In an obscure corner of the
morning papers one learned the next day that a Frenchman, who had
apparently come to the end of his means, had committed suicide in a
furnished flat in Shaftesbury Avenue. Two foreigners were deported
without having been brought up for trial, for being suspected persons. A
little languid interest was aroused at the inquest when one of the
witnesses deposed to the deceased having been a famous French criminal.
Nothing further transpired, however, and the readers of the halfpenny
press for once were deprived of their sensation. For the rest, Peter
received, with much satisfaction, a remarkably handsome signet ring,
bearing some famous arms, and a telegram from Sogrange: "_Well done,
Baron! May the successful termination of your enterprise nerve you for
the greater undertaking which is close at hand. I leave for London by
the night train._--SOGRA