they followed the placing of
the lady's picture in Paul's pocket.

For a couple of minutes nothing was said. Each man knew instinctively
that he must move to the attack, but realized that a mistake at the
opening of the game might possibly spell disaster.

It was the baronet who broke the silence.

"No man, except one such as you," he said, "would dream of regarding
Mademoiselle Vseslavitch as a possible wife unless he were so
equipped with all the arts of blackmail that he had some reason to
hope for his success."

By this time Boris had got back his composure.

"You seem," he said casually, "to endow me with an exceedingly poor
character."

"Not exactly," said Paul. "I endow you with an exceedingly dangerous
one."

There was another pause, and the two pairs of eyes sought each other,
and the heavy-lidded, slumberous eyes of Boris flickered and faltered
beneath those of Paul.

"I am about to present to you an argument," continued the baronet,
"which unswervingly follows my present conception. Long experience of
this wicked world--by which I mean that particular kind of
vulture-like humanity which preys upon better men than itself--enables
me to assume that you are without question a blackmailer, a bad
blackmailer, and a blackmailer of no common type.

"But I have also learnt this, that no blackmailer can stand alone. His
offence is the most cowardly offence in the world. A blackmailer is
always a coward, and a coward is invariably afraid of isolated action.
I am therefore very certain that you do not stand alone in this
attempt."

It had come upon Paul suddenly that this man was connected in some way
with the scene he had witnessed at Lucerne--that he was the one for
whom the fat man had acted as agent. And then, in a flash, he recalled
the name "Boris" which Mademoiselle Vseslavitch had spoken; at that
moment, too, Paul placed the personality of the Frenchman Virot. He
and the fat man of Lucerne were one.

Boris's eyes left those of Paul and studied the panel behind the
baronet's head.

"I should say," Paul continued, "that you were the headpiece, the
brain-piece, of a well-planned scheme of crime."

The faint colour in Boris's face became fainter still. Paul believed
he was pursuing the right trail.

"Now with such men as yourself--mind, I am not speaking so much from
knowledge as from an intuition as to what I should do myself were I
placed in similar circumstances--it is probable that you have