“Well, I discovered that Gabrielle was held beneath the thrall of that blackguard, Edward Everard, a thief of the most unscrupulous type where women were concerned. The girl confessed to me. She told me how she had been compelled to aid him in his plans in Paris and elsewhere, and how Everard was plotting to obtain the secret of your wireless invention in order to dispose of it to some people in Brussels. I induced her to tell me the whole plot—a most ingenious one—and then——”
And he paused.
“Yes, go on,” said Geoffrey, looking into the other’s pale, hard-drawn face.
“Well—I followed him on that night,” he said in a low, intense voice. “I watched him break into your room and cut open the dispatch-box. I saw him leave and go along the road, and—and in order to save Gabrielle from him and save your invention from falling into the hands of others, I—I shot him!”
“You did?” gasped Falconer, astounded.
“Yes. And now you can give me up to the police. I don’t care. I love Gabrielle, and I have saved her from that fiend who wore a glove to conceal a deformity by which he could have been easily identified.”
“Where is Gabrielle now?”
“She sailed for Cape Town last Tuesday, and will await me there. We arranged to be married on my arrival.”
Falconer paused. A long silence fell between the two men.
At last Geoffrey spoke, his voice trembling with emotion: