Here he paused and watched her expression very closely. As he had hoped, the girl was unable to master her feelings. Rage and hate wrote themselves large across her face and her voice fairly snapped as she started to reply. Randall, however, interrupted her with a smile and the statement:
"That's enough! I'm going to lay my cards face up on the table. I am a Secret Service operative seeking information about Cheney. Here is my badge, merely to prove that I'm telling the truth. We have reason to believe that 'the Count,' as he is called, is mixed up with a pro-German plot which, if successful, would imperil the peace of the country. Can you tell us anything about him?"
"Can I?" echoed the girl. "The beast! He promised to marry me, more than two months ago, and then got infatuated with some blond chit of a chorus girl. Just because I lost my head and showed him a letter I had received—a letter warning me against him—he flew into a rage and threatened.... Well, never mind what he did say. The upshot of the affair was that he sent me out of town and gave me enough money to last me some time. But he'll pay for his insults!"
"Have you the letter you received?" asked Randall, casually—as if it meant little to him whether the girl produced it or not.
"Yes. I kept it. Wait a moment and I'll get it for you." A few seconds later she was back with a note, written in a feminine hand—a note which read:
If you are wise you will ask the man who calls himself Carl Cheney what he knows of Paul Weiss, of George Winters, and Oscar Stanley. You might also inquire what has become of Florence and Rose.
(Signed) Amelia.
Randall looked up with a puzzled expression. "What's all this about?" he inquired. "Sounds like Greek to me."
"To me, too," agreed the girl. "But it was enough to make Carl purple with rage and, what's more, to separate him from several thousand dollars."
"Weiss, Winters, and Stanley," mused Guy. "Those might easily be Cheney's former aliases. Florence, Rose, and Amelia? I wonder.... Come on, girl, we're going to take a ride down to City Hall! I've got a hunch!"
Late that afternoon when Carl Cheney arrived at his hotel he was surprised to find a young man awaiting him in his apartment—a man who appeared to be perfectly at ease and who slipped over and locked the door once the count was safely within the room.