第75章

"What's up?" he gasped."I heard a shot.Where's Kennedy?"I motioned in the darkness.Kennedy's electric bull's-eye flashed up at that instant and we saw him deftly slip a bright pair of manacles on the wrists of the man on the floor, who was breathing heavily, while blood flowed from a few slight cuts due to his fall.

Dexterously as a pickpocket Craig reached into the man's coat, pulled out a packet of papers, and gazed eagerly at one after another.From among them he unfolded one written in French to Madame Marie de Nevers some weeks before.I translate:

DEAR MARIE: Herr Schmidt informs me that his agent in the War Department at Washington, U.S.A., has secured some important information which will interest the Government for which Herr Schmidt is the agent - of course you know who that is.

It is necessary that you should carry the packet which will be handed to you (if you agree to my proposal) to New York by the steamer Tripolitania.Go to the Vandeveer Hotel and in a few days, as soon as a certain exchange can be made, either our friend in Washington or myself will call on you, using the name Gonzales.In return for the package which you carry he will hand you another.Lose no time in bringing the second package back to Paris.

I have arranged that you will receive ten thousand francs and your expenses for your services in this matter.Under no conditions betray your connection with Herr Schmidt.I was to have carried the packet to America myself and make the exchange but knowing your need of money I have secured the work for you.

You had better take your maid, as it is much better to travel with distinction in this case.If, however, you accept this commission I shall consider you in honour bound to surrender your claim upon my name for which I agree to pay you fifty thousand francs upon my marriage with the American heiress of whom you know.Please let me know immediately through our mutual friend Henri Duval whether this proposal is satisfactory.

Henri will tell you that fifty thousand is my ultimatum.

"The scoundrel," ground out Kennedy."He lured his wife from Paris to New York, thinking the Paris police too acute for him, I suppose.Then by means of the treachery of the maid Louise and his friend Duval, a crook who would even descend to play the part of valet for him and fall in love with the maid, he has succeeded in removing the woman who stood between him and an American fortune.""Marie," rambled Chateaurouge as he came blinking, sneezing, and choking out of his stupor, "Marie, you are clever, but not too clever for me.This blackmailing must stop.Miss Lovelace knows something, thanks to you, but she shall never know all - never -=20never.You - you - ugh! - Stop.Do you think you can hold me back now with those little white hands on my wrists? I wrench them loose - so - and - ugh! - What's this? Where am I?"The man gazed dazedly at the manacles that held his wrists instead of the delicate hands he had been dreaming of as he lived over the terrible scene of his struggle with the woman who was his wife in the Vanderveer.

"Chateaurouge," almost hissed Kennedy in his righteous wrath, "fake nobleman, real swindler of five continents.Marie de Nevers alive stood in the way of your marriage to the heiress Miss Lovelace.

Dead, she prevents it absolutely."

Craig continued to turn over the papers in his hand, as he spoke.

At last he came to a smaller packet in oiled silk.As he broke the seal he glanced at it in surprise, then hurriedly exclaimed, "There, Burke.Take these to the War Department and tell them they can turn out their lights and stop their telegrams.This seems to be a copy of our government's plans for the fortification of the Panama Canal, heights of guns, location of searchlights, fire control stations, everything from painstaking search of official and confidential records.That is what this fellow obtained in exchange for his false blue prints of the supposed coaling station on the Pacific.

"I leave the Secret Service to find the leak in the War Department.

What I am interested in is not the man who played spy for two nations and betrayed one of them.To me this adventurer who calls himself Chateaurouge is merely the murderer of Madame de Nevers."