“You mentioned Jean,” continued the woman. “Tell me, what of him?”
“What of him? What should there be of him? He is invaluable. But for the information he gives me I could not accomplish what I do; I could have accomplished nothing of what I have already done. And he is innocent of real wrong, is he not? He tells me, merely, ‘To-morrow evening Monsieur Kane will anchor at such a place with his yacht, the Goalong. I shall be a guest.’ It is enough. He says no more than that. If I appear upon the scene and demand tribute, Jean is not to blame. Again he says to me, ‘Monsieur Burton is fond of running his yacht, the Harkaway, through the Sound by night, when the moon is full. He likes to go at half-speed. I should not be surprised if he left Newport soon after we do so, and I am quite sure that he will be due at that same anchorage where we are going the evening following our arrival.’ You see, Hortense, that is merely a comment. If I take advantage of the knowledge thus acquired, it is no fault of Jean’s, is it?”
“Bah!” she exclaimed. “Such arguments! Sophistry! Lies!”
“Well? And then what? In Anjou we have our estates—Jean and I. When he is away, I am there. When I am there, he is not. Even our own people do not understand that there are two men who are so much alike that one cannot be separated from the other by strange eyes. And who, in the end, shall have it to say that the Count of Cadillac was ever a pirate? Surely, not the American millionaires who have entertained him; surely not those men who have seen him seated beside them on their own decks while the pirate was engaged in looting their treasures. And when I have collected the five or ten million francs and taken them to France—when the fortunes of the Cadillacs are reestablished, and one or the other of us seems suddenly to reappear from far-away Peru with a story about fabulous mines owned there, which have yielded the fortune so suddenly in evidence, who will there be to say that once there was a Shadow on the water—a pirate, if you will—which collected this fortune for the twin brothers so happily reunited after a separation which has endured since childhood? Ah, Hortense, it is well planned. It is well schemed. It is perfect!”
The woman was quietly weeping now, and did not reply. Seeing that it was so, he left his seat and passed around the table to her side.
“I am sorry, petite,” he said sadly. “It is robbery, I know. But it is robbery of millionaires, who will never miss what is taken from them.”
He would have caressed her, but she repulsed him.
“No,” she said. “Leave me. I do not know even if you are Jules. You may be Jean. When one of you is beside me I never know which one it is. It is only when you approach me together, side by side, that I know which is my husband. And you can change places with each other so deftly that I never know when you do it. Return to your chair. Remain there until you go to your room.”
He laughed uneasily; but he obeyed her, and returned to his chair at the opposite side of the table.
Nick Carter witnessed this scene with varying emotions, and behind him in the passageway he knew that Chick and Kane were both standing, as deeply interested as he was. He was thinking that somewhere about the craft there were at least seven more men. No doubt they were forward in their own quarters. Perhaps they were in that general assembly-room.