"I won't let it get away," I promised. "Perhaps it's just as well I'm not over-enthusiastic about it."

"Let me know as soon as you have any news," he said, and opened the door for me.

I had intended walking home, but as I turned up the Avenue, I met sweeping down it a flood of girls just released from the workshops of the neighbourhood. I struggled against it for a few moments, then gave it up, hailed a cab, and settled back against the cushions with a sigh of relief. I was glad to be out of Vantine's house; something there oppressed me and left me ill at ease. Was Vantine quite normal, I wondered? Could any man be normal who was willing to pay a hundred thousand dollars for a piece of furniture? Especially a man who could not afford such extravagance? I knew the size of Vantine's fortune; it was large, but a hundred thousand dollars represented more than a year's income. And then I smiled to myself. Of course Vantine had been merely jesting when he named that limit. The cabinet could be bought for a tenth of it, at the most. And, still smiling, I left the cab, paid the driver, and mounted to my rooms.

CHAPTER IV

THE THUNDERBOLT

It was about eight o'clock that evening that G.o.dfrey tapped at my door, and when I let him in, I could tell by the way his eyes were shining that he had some news.

"I can't stay long," he said. "I've got to get down to the office and put the finishing touches on that story;" but nevertheless he took the cigar I proffered him and sank into the chair opposite my own.

I knew G.o.dfrey, so I waited patiently until the cigar was going nicely, then--

"Well?" I asked.

"It's like old times, isn't it, Lester?" and he smiled across at me.

"How many conferences have we had in this room? How many of your cigars have I made away with?"

"Not half enough recently," I said. "You haven't been here for months."

"I'm sure to drift back, sooner or later, because you seem to have a knack of getting in on the interesting cases. And I want to say this, Lester, that of all I ever had, not one has promised better than this one does. If it only keeps up--but one mustn't expect too much!"

"You've been working on it, of course?"

"I haven't been idle, and just now I'm feeling rather pleased with myself. The coroner's physician finished his post-mortem half an hour or so ago."

"Well?" I said again.

"The stomach was absolutely normal. It showed no trace of poison of any kind."

He stretched himself, lay back in his chair, sent a smoke-ring circling toward the ceiling, and watched it, smiling absently.

"Rather a facer for our friend Goldberger," he added, after a minute.

"What's the matter with Goldberger? He seemed rather peeved with you this afternoon."

"No wonder. He's Grady's man, and we're after Grady. Grady isn't fit to head the detective bureau--he got the job through his pull with Tammany--he's stupid, and I suspect he's crooked. The _Record_ says he has got to go."

"So, of course, he _will_ go," I commented, smiling.

"He certainly will," a.s.sented G.o.dfrey seriously, "and that before long. But meanwhile it's a little difficult for me, because his people don't know which way to jump. Once he's out, everything will be serene again."

I wasn't interested in Grady, so I came back to the case in hand.

"Look here, G.o.dfrey," I said, "if it wasn't poison, what was it?"

"But it _was_ poison."

"Inserted at the hand?"

He nodded.

"Goldberger says there's no poison known which could be used that way and which would act so quickly."

"Goldberger is right in that," agreed G.o.dfrey; "but there's a poison unknown that will--because it did."

"It wasn't a snake bite?"

"Oh, no; snake poison wouldn't kill a man that quickly--not even a fer-de-lance. That fellow practically dropped where he was struck."

"Then what was it?"

G.o.dfrey was sitting erect again. He was not smiling now. His face was very stern.

"That is what I am going to find out, Lester," he said; "that is the problem I've set myself to solve--and it's a pretty one. There is one thing certain--that fellow was killed by some agency outside himself.

In some way, a drop or two of poison was introduced into his blood by an instrument something like a hypodermic needle; and that poison was so powerful that almost instantly it caused paralysis of the heart.

After all, that isn't so remarkable as it might seem. The blood in the veins of the hand would be carried back to the heart in four or five seconds."

"But you've already said there's no poison so powerful as all that."

"I said we didn't know of any. I wouldn't be so sure that Catherine de Medici didn't."

"What has Catherine de Medici to do with it?"

"Nothing--except that what has been done may always be done again.

Those old stories are, no doubt, exaggerated; but it seems fairly certain that the Queen of Navarre was killed with a pair of poisoned gloves, the Duc d'Anjou with the scent of a poisoned rose, and the Prince de Porcian with the smoke of a poisoned lamp. This case isn't as extraordinary as those."

"No," I agreed, and fell silent, shivering a little, for there is something horrible and revolting about the poisoner.

"After all," went on G.o.dfrey, at last, "there is one thing that neither you nor I nor any reasonable man can believe, and that is that this Frenchman came from heaven knows where--from Paris, perhaps--with Vantine's address in his pocket, and hunted up the house and made his way into it simply to kill himself there. He had some other object, and he met his death while trying to accomplish it."

"Have you found out who he is?"

"No; he's not registered at any of the hotels; the French consul never heard of him; he belongs to none of the French societies; he's not known in the French quarter. He seems to have dropped in from the clouds. We've cabled our Paris office to look him up; we may hear from there to-night. But even if we discover the ident.i.ty of Theophile d'Aurelle, it won't help us any."

"Why not?" I demanded.

"Because it is evident that that isn't his name."

"Go ahead and tell me, G.o.dfrey," I said, as he looked at me, smiling.

"I don't see it."