Gastineau listened with an indulgent smile. “I imagine nothing of the kind, my good Herriard,” he returned. “In the first place I am not exactly going to kill you.”
“Ah!”
“No. You are going within the next few minutes to take your own life, being burdened by the idea of a false position, at a moment when I shall be able to prove if necessary that Paul Gastineau was many hundred miles away.”
There was murder in the face now, and Herriard set his own as he saw it.
“You think so?”
With the recklessness of desperation, now that the passing hope had vanished, he could almost chaff the man who announced his doom.
“I am sure of it.”
“You have a mighty confidence in yourself as a layer of plans, but you have overlooked one circumstance which will surely bring you to the scaffold.”
“Indeed? What is that?”
“Think.”