ry with immovable countenance.

'Who knows?' said Rocco, twisting his beautiful moustache. 'That would
have depended on several things--on your police, for instance. But
probably in the end we should have restored this mortal clay'--again he
jerked his elbow--'to the man's sorrowing relatives.'

'Do you know who the relatives are?'

'Certainly. Don't you? If you don't I need only hint that Dimmock had a
Prince for his father.'

'It seems to me,' said Racksole, with cold sarcasm, 'that you
behaved rather clumsily in choosing this bedroom as the scene of your
operations.'

'Not at all,' said Rocco. 'There was no other apartment so suitable in
the whole hotel. Who would have guessed that anything was going on here?
It was the very place for me.'

'I guessed,' said Racksole succinctly.

'Yes, you guessed, Mr Racksole. But I had not counted on you. You are
the only smart man in the business. You are an American citizen, and I
hadn't reckoned to have to deal with that class of person.'

'Apparently I frightened you this afternoon?'

'Not in the least.'

'You were not afraid of a search?'

'I knew that no search was intended. I knew that you were trying to
frighten me. You must really credit me with a little sagacity and
insight, Mr Racksole. Immediately you began to talk to me in the kitchen
this afternoon I felt you were on the track. But I was not frightened.
I merely decided that there was no time to be lost--that I must act
quickly. I did act quickly, but, it seems, not quickly enough. I grant
that your rapidity exceeded mine. Let us go downstairs, I beg.'

Rocco rose and moved towards the door. With an instinctive action
Racksole rushed forward and seized him by the shoulder.

'No tricks!' said Racksole. 'You're in my custody and don't forget it.'

Rocco turned on his employer a look of gentle, dignified scorn. 'Have
I not informed you,' he said, 'that I have the intention of going
quietly?'

Racksole felt almost ashamed for the moment. It flashed across him that
a man can be great, even in crime.

'What an ineffable fool you were,' said Racksole, stopping him at the
threshold, 'with your talents, your unique talents, to get yourself
mixed up in an affair of this kind. You are ruined. And, by Jove! you
were a great man in your own line.'

'Mr Racksole,' said Rocco very quickly, 'that is the truest word you
have spoken this night. I was a great man in my own line. And I am an
ineffable fool. Alas!' H