wildest
theories become not only possibilities, but probabilities. The cloud of
suspicion hung over him, ruining his health and his life, and casting a
shadow over the whole family. When I married my wife, I determined that
the shadow should be removed. And for the past two years I have devoted
myself to that object.

"You can imagine," he went on, after a pause, "the difficulties that
confronted me. Eighteen years had elapsed since the crime had been
committed. Men, women, and even buildings, had passed, and been
replaced--records had been lost--memories failed. But money,
perseverance, and imagination slowly conquered. Step by step the years
were overcome. With the aid of a small army of assistants, I succeeded
in isolating a certain person. I placed that person beside the dead body
of Colette d'Orsel, and began my pursuit. _Mon Dieu_, how I worked!
After the hardest year of my life, I at last established a link between
the death of Colette d'Orsel and the death of Margaret McCall--and that
link was the personality I had isolated in the first place at Nice. But
it had changed itself. I followed scent after scent--trail after trail.
When I came to London a few days ago, I had sufficient information to
allow me to commence the final stage of the adventure. I had solved the
most difficult question of all--the present identity of my quarry. The
second most difficult question remained to be solved--proofs of guilt.
How could I obtain them? How could I prove that this person--living here
in all the security of time--was the person who had torn those two women
to pieces in America and France ten and twenty years ago? I had certain
clues to follow up, but the results could not possibly have been
sufficient to prove such an accusation. What was I to do? To rely upon
observation? To search for--and wait for--a proof in this person's
daily intercourse with the world? To place a beautiful woman within
reach, and watch for a betrayal? That was actually the object in my mind
when I called on my friend Tranter, and requested him to open to me the
doors of London society. Sooner or later, I should have found, or
brought about, the situation I was looking for. It might have been
years--doubtless it would have been years--if he had not, by the most
remarkable chance, taken me direct to that house at Richmond. Then came
the death of Christine Manderson. It was horrible--appalling! And to
think that I, who had detected and tracked the De