the Ridge Road. That's why your august head's so badly bruised.
But why aggravate your blood pressure now when it's so infernally hot
and you've work ahead. Hunch," he added carelessly to the admiring
henchman who had once dealt away successive slices of his inheritance,
"go get a pitcher of ice water and rustle up another siphon of seltzer
and some whiskey. Likely His Nibs and I will play chess again
to-night."

Hunch rose from a chair by the window where he had flattened his single
good eye against a knot hole, and slouched heavily to the door.

The face of the prisoner slowly whitened. Every muscle of his body
quivered suddenly in horrible revulsion. Nights of enforced
drunkenness had left his nerves strained to the breaking point.

"Monsieur," he panted, greatly agitated, "the whiskey--the thought of
it again to-night--is maddening."

Carl merely raised ironical eyebrows.

"You are not a man," choked the other, shaking. "You are a nameless
demon! Such hellish originality in the conception of evil, such
singular indignities as you have seen fit to inflict, they are the
freaks of a madman!"

"Thank you," said Carl politely. "One likes to have one's little
ingenuities appreciated."

"I--I am ill--and the room is stifling."

"If I do not mind it," said Carl in aggrieved surprise, "why should
you?"

"You are a thing of steel and infernal fire. I am but human."

"There is a way to stop it all," reminded Carl, lazily relighting his
cigar. "Why not give me a logical reason for your presence in America?"

"I have done so. Have I not said again and again that I am Sigimund
Jokai, of Vienna, touring in America?"

"You have said so," agreed Carl imperturbably, "but you lie. There was
an empty chamber in your revolver, you were perilously close to my
cousin's camp. Why? Is it not better to tell me than foolishly to
waste such splendid nerve and grit as you possess?"

The prisoner moistened his bloodless lips and shrugged.

"Monsieur," he accused coldly, "you tinge commonplace incidents with
melodrama."

"Days ago--er--Jokai of Vienna," went on Carl thoughtfully, "I
dispatched a formal communication to your country. Why has it been
ignored? Why did my first inkling of its effect come in the sight of
your face in suspicious territory? And why, Monsieur," purred Carl
softly, "did you seek to kill me by a trick?"

"Monsieur, you delayed me. I am hot of temper--"

"And kill whoever angers you?