“She is just now engaged, in company with a man whom we know on our side of the water as Bare-Faced Jimmy, in rather a large scheme. Jimmy has stolen the identity of a young Virginian who is doubtless dead—it isn’t unlikely that Jimmy murdered him and that this woman helped him do it. ‘The Leopard,’ as you call her, has married Jimmy——”
“Wait, wait, wait! Married, you say? Impossible!”
“Eh? Why impossible?”
“Because, why should she have married a criminal, when she could have had her pick of titles over here many times?”
“That is a question I cannot answer; only there is no doubt that she is married to Jimmy.”
The chief of the secret police of Paris shook his head with emphasis.
“Impossible!” he said again, with conviction.
“Why?” repeated the detective.
“Because—ah, who can give a reason for what women do, or refuse to do? Not I, although I have been studying them for years.”
“But you have a reason for such a decided opinion, chief.”