“Because there can be no doubt, not the slightest, that she set those men upon you.”
The detective shook his head in a positive negative.
“No,” he said, “I do not think so.”
“You do not? Why not?”
“For several reasons, the chief one being because it would have been bad policy on her part. Then there are minor reasons. For example, there was not time for her to arrange it. She could not know that I would stop on the corner near her house, puzzled by the experiences of the night, and that Turnieff would overtake me there. For if I had not stopped there for five minutes or more, he would not have found me and there would have been no quarrel.”
“And he would still be among the living.”
“No; I do not think so.”
“You do not? Why?”
“Prince, hasn’t it occurred to you that in order that this affair could happen just as it did, those men must have been there on the watch?”
“Yes. But——”