“I’m telling you now,” the Count grinned.
“And I’m exceedingly grateful to my dear cousin for leaving you to tell it. It’s the only service he has ever done me. I assume it isn’t necessary to ask if you got him—or even wounded him?”
“Quite unnecessary.”
Madeline Spencer had been chafing at the delay; now she arose, and, going over to a divan, sank sinuously among the pillows, one trim, blue silk ankle shimmering far below her skirts.
“If you were as slow in the fight, Count, as you are in getting at the story,” she remarked, “it’s a wonder to me how Bernheim missed you.”
Both men laughed, and Bigler’s glance lingered a moment in open admiration.
The Duke swung his hand toward her.
“Madame grows impatient,” he said. “Proceed, Monsieur Edmund.”
The Count took a fresh cigarette.
“It was this way,” he began, pivoting his chair around on one back leg, so that he would have both his auditors within his direct vision. “The two weeks we were bound to idleness mourning for old Frederick, I spent in watching the American. I soon discovered that it was his custom, every few days, to visit, very late at night, his friend, the American Ambassador, and that he invariably not only walked the entire distance from the Epsau and back, but also went unattended. It seemed to me very simple to waylay him, some night on his return; the streets were usually deserted then, and he should be an easy victim, if set upon by enough men to assure success. And I had about arranged the matter, when I chanced to remember that the De Saures were still in the country and their house closed. It stands far back from the Avenue, you know, and a safer and surer plan occurred to me:—I would lure him into this house, and leave him there for burial. In the dark, my four rogues could put enough steel through him, from behind, to insure his quick demise. I proposed to take no chances with such a swordsman by giving him a light; and besides, it was just as well that the men should not know their victim. Nor did they ever see me unmasked. For decoy, one of the rogues procured a woman——”