"I? Oh, I shall start for Mexico by the first train that goes. These letters will give me all the data for that that I shall require."
"You have them—Mr. Winthrop's letters?"
"Every one, I think."
[CHAPTER XVI.]
Before leaving for Mexico there was a long, detailed conversation between Stolliker and Carlita, a conversation in which he fully outlined to her the part it would be necessary for her to play—a line of action to which she offered no word of objection, though her whole soul rebelled against such duplicity.
There was also a telegraph code agreed upon, by which cipher telegrams could be sent; a method used before, but always comparatively safe. A book was mutually agreed upon, in this instance "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," by Conan Doyle. The word, counting from the bottom of the page, was to be indicated by the first number, the page itself by the second; so that to read it would be impossible, unless the reader knew to what volume the numbers referred, as well as the edition selected.
They understood each other perfectly when Stolliker left to catch his train, and in his own mind there was not a doubt but that he should be able to prove Pierrepont's guilt with almost greater ease than he had ever settled a case before.
"It's too pretty a neck to be bound by a halter," he mused, as he took his seat in the train. "Adam lost Eden because of a woman—a woman who loved him; but this man will lose more than that, if I mistake not. He will lose not alone his life, but his soul as well, and for a woman who loves him not! It is a queer world, and man is the queerest animal in it. Instead of conscience making cowards of us all, passion makes brutes of us all, and we forget conscience and cowardice, too, under the intoxicant of a woman's smile."