"I have to my hand," Lawrence went on, "the materials for a magnificent romance. Let us go back a little while. Some week or two ago here we discussed the Corner House. I said it would make the scene of a capital romance. I went further and said I had already sketched the story out. You recollect that?"
The Countess nodded. Her lips were narrow and drawn in tightly.
"Strange to say," Lawrence proceeded, "almost immediately there was a tragedy at the Corner House, just on the lines of my story--the story that I said I should probably never write. Now that was very strange."
"Very strange indeed," the Countess said hoarsely.
"The more I thought it over the more certain I became that my brain had been picked, and that my plot was being used by some designing person to bring trouble and disgrace upon a man who is destined to be related to me. I waited for a little time to see how matters were developing, and then decided to refresh my memory from the skeleton plot of that unwritten story. When I looked in my desk I could not find the plot. Why? Because it had been stolen.
"I was quite certain of the fact when I looked for it. And all the time this Corner House tragedy was being enacted exactly as I should have written it. There were other complications, of course, but the plot was the same."
"It sounds incredible," the Countess said.
"Not to me," Lawrence replied meaningly. "The person who stole my plot did not know that I had it thoroughly by heart. And when my young friend Bruce went to the Corner House and got into all that trouble, I was in a position beforehand to tell him all that had happened. The scheme over those notes was also mine. I know perfectly well how the whole thing was worked so as to make an innocent man appear guilty. I knew before I heard Bruce's story all about the old German and the picture.
"Perhaps you knew also the culprit," the Countess suggested.
Lawrence did not appear to hear the question, so he proceeded.