"Try to lie out of it!" Vance gloated. "Just try to explain that picture in your hands!"
"I don't have to explain, Vance. You know why I'm here."
The wail of a siren sounded in the distance.
"Oh, of course I know." The other was laughing softly, greasily. "But will the police understand, Carter? That siren you hear—it's coming here, you know; I called the station before I came down to grab you."
Mark's heart jumped like a wounded stag. He looked around wildly. Was this to be the end of it all? Was he to lie in jail while Elaine went to her death, back there in Bourbon France?
His captor was speaking again:
"I didn't dream I could have this much luck! To see that slut Elaine dead—that was the height of my ambition. But now—to have you sent to the penitentiary for burglary—"
The words ended in a roar of laughter. It died, and Vance went on, his tone grim and deadly:
"It's time you dropped that picture, Carter. Drop it—and put your hands up!"
The picture! The one link between 1942 and 1780!