ition for the moment. What do you deduce? What do you infer
therefrom?"

"Surely you can see what follows--what this leads us to?" said Sir
Charles, rather disdainfully.

"I have formed an opinion--yes, but I should like to see if it
coincides with yours. You think--"

"I know," corrected the General. "I know that, as two persons
wrote in that book, either it is not Ripaldi's book, or the last
of them was not Ripaldi. I saw the last writer at his work, saw
him with my own eyes. Yet he did not write with Ripaldi's hand--
this is incontestable, I am sure of it, I will swear it--ergo, he
is not Ripaldi."

"But you should have known this at the time," interjected M.
Flocon, fiercely. "Why did you not discover the change of
identity? You should have seen that this was not Ripaldi."

"Pardon me. I did not know the man. I had not noticed him
particularly on the journey. There was no reason why I should. I
had no communication, no dealings, with any of my fellow
passengers except my brother and the Countess."

"But some of the others would surely have remarked the change?"
went on the Judge, greatly puzzled. "That alone seems enough to
condemn your theory, M. le General."

"I take my stand on fact, not theory," stoutly maintained Sir
Charles, "and I am satisfied I am right."

"But if that was not Ripaldi, who was it? Who would wish to
masquerade in his dress and character, to make entries of that
sort, as if under his hand?"

"Some one determined to divert suspicion from himself to others--"

"But stay--does he not plainly confess his own guilt?"

"What matter if he is not Ripaldi? Directly the inquiry was over,
he could steal away and resume his own personality--that of a man
supposed to be dead, and therefore safe from all interference and
future pursuit."

"You mean--Upon my word, I compliment you, M. le General. It is
really ingenious! remarkable, indeed! superb!" cried the Judge,
and only professional jealousy prevented M. Flocon from conceding
the same praise.

"But how--what--I do not understand," asked Colonel Papillon in
amazement. His wits did not travel quite so fast as those of his
companions.

"Simply this, my dear Jack," explained the General: "Ripaldi must
have tried to blackmail Quadling, as he proposed, and Quadling
turned the tables on him. They fought, no doubt, and Quadling
killed him, possibly in self-defence. He would have said so, but
in his peculiar position as an absconding defaulte