“And the next one? What was that?”
“It happened to be another victim—if I may use the term. This time it was an Austrian. We did not know till after his death that he was a spy in the service of Austria, but that developed later.”
“Did the Austrian also kill himself?”
“No; he was murdered in cold blood. But it happened more than an hour after he had parted with your Juno, and there was not a thing to connect her with the crime, save that she had been with him an hour previously—and that all his money and valuables had disappeared at the time of his death. He was killed while he was the occupant of a closed carriage in which they had been riding together; the carriage stopped at the door where she lived to put her down, and the driver testified that the man was alive after she left him.
“He was a diplomatic agent, also; and, as in the other case, it was said that papers of great value, as well as other things, had disappeared from his person.
“I could give you other incidents of the same sort, Carter, that have happened in her career. The police of St. Petersburg could do the same. Vienna, Berlin, and other centres of activity could each add a quota; and there you are. Now, I will ask you to read her dossier, and after that we will discuss her further, if you desire it.”
The chief touched a button and gave a direction; and, presently, with an open volume before him, Nick withdrew into a corner and passed half an hour in studying what had been written down in it under the name of “The Leopard.”
At the end of that time he closed the volume and drew his chair forward.
“The dossier tells me nothing new,” he said to the chief. “It gives me no further information than that already supplied by you, save that it goes into details rather more particularly.”
“Exactly.”