It was his hobby, this
vengeance. He was like a big, cruel boy. It was he, himself, Juan
Menendez, who broke into Cray's Folly. It was he who nailed the bat
wing to the door. It was he who bought two rifles of a kind of which so
many millions were made during the war that anybody might possess one.
And it was he who concealed the first of these, one cartridge
discharged, under the floor of the hut in the garden of the Guest
House. The other, which was to be used, he placed--"
"In the shutter-case of one of the tower rooms," continued Paul Harley.
"I know! I found it there to-night."
"What?" I asked, "you found it, Harley?"
"I returned to look for it," he said. "At the present moment it is
upstairs in my room."
"Ah, M. Harley," exclaimed Madame, smiling at him radiantly, "I love
your genius. Then it was," she continued, "that he thought himself
ready, ready for revenge and ready for death. He summoned you, M.
Harley, to be an expert witness. He placed with you evidence which
could not fail to lead to the arrest of M. Camber. Very well. I allowed
him to do all this. His courage, _mon Dieu_, how I worshipped his
courage!
"At night, when everyone slept, and he could drop the mask, I have seen
what he suffered.
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