"It is false! You have no right to the name of Hobson. You are not an Englishman. You may reside in London, but it is only temporarily."
"Who am I then?" asked Ledantec with a sneer.
"In Paris, at your last visit, you passed as Hippolyte Ledantec, but your real name is Serge Michaelovitch Vasilenikoff. You are a Russian by birth, by profession a gambler, a blackleg, a cheat."
Ledantec, as I shall still call him, merely shrugged his shoulders in sarcastic helplessness at this abuse.
"You are worse. You are a spy in the service of the enemies of the State; an unconvicted murderer—"
He bent his eyes upon the prisoner with a piercing gaze, to watch the effect of this accusation.
Ledantec never blenched, and the judge presently continued—
"You are the real author of the crime in Tinplate Street."
"M. Rupert Gascoigne is your informant, I presume," said Ledantec sneering; "it is easy to rebut a charge by throwing it on another. But you are too clever, M. le Juge, to be imposed upon."
"You at least cannot hoodwink me. We have the fullest evidence, let me tell you, of the crime—all the crimes—laid to your charge. Your accomplice has confessed."