ked.

"Yes. And in the meantime much can happen--eh?" laughed Benton.

"Lots. But one reassuring fact is that, as far as old Henfrey's fate
is concerned, Mademoiselle's lips are closed. Whoever shot her did us a
very good turn."

"Of course. But I agree we must fix the guilt upon old Cataldi. He
almost as good as admitted it by his face when I taxed him with it. Why
not give him away to the Nice police?"

"No, not yet. Certainly not," exclaimed Howell.

"It's a pity The Sparrow does not know about the Henfrey business. He
might help us. Dare we tell him? What do you think?"

"Tell him! Good Heavens! No! Surely you are fully aware how he always
sets his face against any attempt upon human life, and no one who has
taken life has ever had his forgiveness," said Howell. "The Sparrow is
our master--a fine and marvellous mind which has no equal in Europe. If
he had gone into politics he could have been the greatest statesman
of the age. But he is Il Passero, the man who directs affairs of every
kind, and the man at the helm of every great enterprise. Yet his one
fixed motto is that life shall not be taken."

"But in old Henfrey's case we acted upon our own initiative," remarked
Benton.

"Yes. Yours was a wonderfully well-conceived idea. And all worked
without a hitch until young Henfrey's visit to Monte Carlo, and his
affection for that girl Ranscomb."

"We are weaning him away from her," Benton said. "At last the girl's
suspicions are excited, and there is just that little disagreement
which, broadening, leads to the open breach. Oh! my dear Howell, how
could you and I live if it were not for that silly infection called
love? In our profession love is all-conquering. Without it we could make
no progress, no smart coups, no conquests of women who afterwards shed
out to us money which at the assizes they would designate by the ugly
word 'blackmail.'"

"Ah! Charles. You were always a philosopher," laughed his companion--the
man who was a bosom friend of The Sparrow. "But it carries us no nearer.
We must, at all costs, fix the hand that shot Yvonne."

"Giulio shot her--without a doubt!" was Benton's quick reply.

They were standing together on the kerb outside the Tube station at
Piccadilly Circus as Benton uttered the words.

"Well, my dear fellow, then let us prove it," said Howell. "But not yet,
remember. We must first see how it goes with Molly. She must be watched
carefully. Of course, I agree that Giulio Ca