Keefe’s face relaxed at that, and he recovered his jaunty manner, as he said: “Then you admit I have beaten you at your own game, Mr. Stone?”
“No, Mr. Keefe, but I have beaten you at yours.”
A silence fell for a moment. There was something about Stone’s manner of speaking that made for conviction in the minds of his hearers that he said truth.
“Wait a minute! Oh, wait a minute!” It was Genevieve Lane who cried out the words, and then she sprang from her chair and ran to Keefe’s side.
Flinging her arms about him, she whispered close to his ear.
He listened, and then, with a scornful gesture he flung her off.
“No!” he said to her; “no! a thousand times, no! Do your worst.”
“I shall!” replied Genevieve, and without another word she resumed her seat.
“Yes,” went on Stone, this interruption being over, “your ingenious ‘success’ in the way of detecting is doomed to an ignominious end. You see, sir,” he turned to Daniel Wheeler, “the clever ruse Mr. Keefe has worked, is but a ruse—a stratagem, to deceive us all and to turn the just suspicion of the criminal in an unjust direction.”
“Explain, Mr. Stone,” said Wheeler, apparently not much impressed with what he deemed a last attempt on the part of the detective to redeem his reputation.