“Yes, I heard,” was the calm answer. “But what of it? You can prove nothing only that women are fools. I shall hire a good lawyer and—poof! What would you have—a man must live. Bigamy, it is not such a serious charge.”
“Oh, no, there are worse,” said the colonel calmly. “You're going to hear one presently. She told me just what I wanted to know, as I thought she would if I could get her roused up enough against you. So, you weren't riding, as you said, with her the day Mr. Carwell came to his end. I never thought you were, Jean of the many names. And now, officer, if you'll take him back and lock him up, I guess this will be about all to-day.”
“But I want to get bail!” exclaimed the prisoner. “I have a right to be bailed. My lawyer says so.”
“There isn't any bail in your case,” said the detective.
“Pooh! Nonsense! Bigamy, it is not such a serious charge.”
“Oh, didn't I tell you? I meant to,” said the colonel gently. “You're under another accusation now. Jean Forette, to call you by your latest alias, you're under arrest, charged with the murder, by poison, of Horace Carwell, and I think we'll come pretty near convicting you by the testimony of Mazi. Ah, would you—not quite!”
He struck down the hand the prisoner had raised to his mouth, and there rolled over the floor a little capsule. The top came off and a white powder spilled out.
“Don't step on it!” warned the colonel as several other officers came in to assist in handling the prisoner, who was struggling violently. “It's probably the same poison, mixed with French dope, that killed Mr. Carwell. Jean had it hidden in the collar band of his shirt ready for emergencies. But you shan't cheat the chair, Jean of the many names!”
They led the Frenchman away, struggling and screaming that he was innocent, that it was all a mistake. By turns he prayed and blasphemed horribly.
“That's the way they usually do when they can't get a shot of their dope,” said the jail physician, after he had visited the prisoner and given him a big dose of bromide. “He'll be a wreck from now on. He's rotten with some French drug, the like of which I've never seen used before.”