ollowed, and prepared for it!"

"But it's incredible!" I protested feebly. "It's incredible!"

"Nothing is incredible in connection with that man!"

"But the risk--think of the risk he ran!"

"What does he care for risks? He despises them--and rightly. He got
away, didn't he?"

"Yes," I said, "he got away; there's no question of that, I guess."

"Well, that is the story of this afternoon's tragedy, as I understand
it," proceeded Godfrey, more calmly. "And now I'm going to leave you.
I want you to think it over. If it doesn't hold together, show me
where it doesn't. But it _will_ hold together--it _has_ to--because
it's true!"

"But how about Armand?" I protested. "Aren't you going to try to
capture him? Are you going to let him get away?"

"He won't get away!" and Godfrey's eyes were gleaming again. "We
don't have to search for him; for we've got our trap, Lester, and
it's baited with a bait he can't resist--the Boule cabinet!"

"But he knows it's a trap."

"Of course he knows it!"

"And you really think he will walk into it?" I asked incredulously.

"I know he will! One of these days, he will try to get that cabinet
out of the steel cell at the Twenty-third Street station, in which we
have it locked!"

I shook my head.

"He's no such fool," I said. "No man is such a fool as that. He'll
give it up and go quietly back to Paris."

"Not if he's the man I think he is," said Godfrey, his hand on the
door. "He will never give up! Just wait, Lester; we shall know in a
day or two which of us is a true prophet. The only thing I am afraid
of," he added, his face clouding, "is that he'll get away with the
cabinet, in spite of us!"

And he went away down the hall, leaving me staring after him.

CHAPTER XXII

"CROCHARD, L'INVINCIBLE!"

It seemed for once that Godfrey was destined to be wrong, for the
days passed and nothing happened--nothing, that is, in so far as the
cabinet was concerned. There was an inquest, of course, over the
victim of the latest tragedy, and once again I was forced to give my
evidence before a coroner's jury. I must confess that, this time, it
made me appear considerable of a fool, and the papers poked sly fun
at the attorney who had walked blindly into a trap which, now that it
was sprung, seemed so apparent.

The Bertillon measurements of the victim had been cabled to Paris,
and he had been instantly identified as a fellow named Morel,
well-known to the police as a daring