evidence to show the connivance of the big folk in
Vienna and Berlin. It will all be an infernal lie, of course,
but the case will look black enough to the world. I'm
not talking hot air, my friend. I happen to know every
detail of the hellish contrivance, and I can tell you it will
be the most finished piece of blackguardism since the
Borgias. But it's not going to come off if there's a
certain man who knows the wheels of the business
alive right here in London on the 15th day of June. And
that man is going to be your servant, Franklin P.
Scudder."

I was getting to like the little chap. His jaw had shut like
a rat-trap, and there was the fire of battle in his gimlety
eyes. If he was spinning me a yarn he could act up to it.

"Where did you find out this story?" I asked.

"I got the first hint in an inn on the Achensee in Tyrol.
That set me inquiring, and I collected my other clues in
a fur-shop in the Galician quarter of Buda, in a
Strangers' Club in Vienna, and in a little book shop off
the Racknitzstrasse in Leipzig. I completed my
evidence ten days ago in Paris. I can't tell you the
details now, for it's something of a history. When I was
quite sure in my own mind I judged it my business to
disappear, and I reached this city by a mighty queer
circuit. I left Paris a dandified young French-American,
and I sailed from Hamburg a Jew diamond merchant.
In Norway I was an English student of Ibsen collecting
materials for lectures, but when I left Bergen I was a
cinema-man with special ski films. And I came here
from Leith with a lot of pulp-wood propositions in my
pocket to put before the London newspapers. Till
yesterday I thought I had muddled my trail some, and
was feeling pretty happy. Then..."

The recollection seemed to upset him, and he gulped
down more whisky.

"Then I saw a man standing in the street outside this
block. I used to stay close in my room all day, and only
slip out after dark for an hour or two. I watched him for
a bit from my window, and I thought I recognized him 
.... He came in and spoke to the porter  ....  When I came
back from my walk last night I found a card in my
letterbox. It bore the name of the man I want least to
meet on God's earth."

I think that the look in my companion's eyes, the sheer
naked scare on his face, completed my conviction of
his honesty. My own voice sharpened a bit as I asked
him what he did next.

"I realized that I was bottled as sure as a pickled
herring, and that there was only one way out. I had to
die. If my pursuers knew I was dead they would go to
sleep again."

"How did you manage it?"

"I told the man that valets me that I was feeling pretty
bad, and I got myself to look like death. That wasn't
difficult, for I'm no slouch at disguises. Then I got a
corpse--you can always get a body in London if you
know where to go for it. I fetched it back in a trunk on
the top of a four-wheeler, and I had to be assisted
upstairs to my room. You see I had to pile up some
evidence for the inquest. I went to bed and got my
man to mix me a sleeping-draught, and then told him
to clear out. He wanted to fetch a doctor, but I swore
some, and said I couldn't abide leeches. When I was
left alone I started in to fake up that corpse. He was my
size, and I judged had perished from too much alcohol,
so I put some spirits handy about the place. The jaw
was the weak point in the likeness, so I blew it away
with a revolver. I daresay there will be somebody to-
morrow to swear to having heard a shot, but there are
no neighbours on my floor, and I guessed I could risk
it. So I left the body in bed dressed up in my pyjamas
with a revolver lying on the bed-clothes and a
considerable mess around. Then I got into a suit of
clothes I had kept waiting for emergencies. I didn't
dare to shave for fear of leaving tracks, and besides, it
wasn't any kind of use my trying to get into the streets.
I had had you in my mind all day, and there seemed
nothing to do but to make an appeal to you. I watched
from my window till I saw you come home, and then
slipped down the stair to meet you  ....  There, sir, I
guess you know about as much as me of this business."

He sat blinking like an owl, fluttering with nerves and
yet desperately determined. By this time I was pretty
well convinced that he was going straight with me. It
was the wildest sort of narrative, but I had heard in my
time many steep tales which had turned out to be true,
and I had made a practice of judging the man rather
than the story. If he had wanted to get a location in my
flat, and then cut my throat, he would have pitched a
milder yarn.