"And I am like other men! I can live as other men live. I can do what other men do. I can——" His eyes rested on the woman beside him, and his face grew tender. "Yes," he repeated slowly, "I can ... I can...."
There was a pause.
"And it was Tranter who killed Christine Manderson...." the inspector said, almost to himself.
"It was," said Monsieur Dupont. "He admitted to you on the night of the crime that he had known her in America years ago. And here we have a curious study in conflicting emotions. When he first met her, he had already killed two beautiful women. She was certainly more beautiful than either—yet he was able to associate with her on intimate terms for a considerable time, and even to tear himself away from her at last, without adding her to the victims of his madness. How was he able to do that? It was undoubtedly because he loved her. He had not loved either of the other two, so there had been no opposing emotion to his mania. But he loved Christine Manderson, and love was capable of holding the madness in check, because love, in its full strength, is the strongest of all human emotions. Love is stronger than madness, and ten times stronger than sanity. But after he left her the love faded to a certain extent, while the madness increased. Therefore, when he was suddenly confronted with her extraordinary beauty a few nights ago, the love that had faded was unable to restrain the madness that had not. And he killed her."
"My God!" exclaimed Copplestone, "to think that he stood there with us over the body he had torn—and even lifted it into my arms—without so much as a quiver."
"He was not capable of remorse or regret," Monsieur Dupont returned. "If he had been, he would have killed himself long ago." He paused. "There remain now a few points of my own part in this affair to tell you, and we will then ask the doctor for his statement."
"Before you do that," said Doctor Lessing, bluntly, "I, for one, am curious to know who you really are, and how you came to take such a large hand in the whole business."
"My connection with the whole business," replied Monsieur Dupont, "is a long story. I have already told it to Inspector Fay, and I will tell it again with pleasure when all the more important statements have been made. As regards myself——"
Inspector Fay took upon himself the continuation of the sentence.
"Up to a few years ago," he said, "Monsieur Dupont was, under a certain pseudonym, the most brilliant member of the French Secret Service—and was, in fact, admitted to have no equal in the whole of Europe."