His amazement was beyond all bounds when Zizi took him over to the Brooklyn hotel and he met Peter Crane.
"This thing has never been equaled in my experience," he declared. "And no one but Zizi could have found you out, unless you chose to make yourself known. Now, we must move warily,—your quarry may get away."
"You know whom I suspect?" asked Peter in astonishment.
"Of course I do, and I've had the same suspect from the beginning. But I couldn't get a shred of evidence,—haven't any yet,— I say, Mr. Crane, suppose you confide in me fully. You'll have no cause to regret it."
So Peter Boots and Pennington Wise and Zizi had a long confab, in which all cards were laid on the table, and all details of the plan settled.
Wise agreed that it would be a fearful blow to Benjamin Crane's pride, but he held that the author of the book about Peter would receive no blame and the fame of the affair would be world-wide, which would make up for the blow to the author's vanity.
Peter was not convinced of this, but agreed to go ahead as Wise suggested. Indeed, he had no choice, for it now rested on his statements whether an innocent man was tried for crime or not.
The medium was completely suborned. She was instructed that if she obeyed orders implicitly and succeeded in fulfilling the desires of her new employers, she would be paid a large sum of money, and enabled to leave the country secretly and safety.
For, after all, she was doing no more than the great army of "mediums" all over the world, and if she achieved good at last, they wished no harm to come to her.
"Moreover," as Peter said, "she was a great comfort to my parents in my absence, and when they know of my presence, they'll have no further use for Madame!"