"Mustn't do that!" chided the colonel, as he picked up the pieces which she was about to grind under her feet."I'll need that at the trial.""You - you beast!" whispered the girl, but the whisper seemed louder than a shout would have been."You beast! No longer will I lie for you.Why you wanted me to, I do not know.Yes, I do! It was so that you might be with some one else when you should have been with me.Listen, all of you!" she cried, as she flung her arms wide."No longer will I shield him.He told me to say that he was with me when that golf man -Monsieur Carwell died - before he died - but he was not.No more will I lie for you, Jean of the many names! You were not with me! I did not even see you that day.Bah! You were kissing some other fool maybe! Oh, my God! I - I - "And the colonel gently laid the trembling, shrieking girl down on a bench, while the eyes of the shrinking figure of Jean the chauffeur followed every movement.
He raised his free hand, and seemed to be struggling to loosen his collar that appeared to choke him.For a moment the attention of Colonel Ashley was turned toward Mazi, who was sobbing frantically.Then, when he saw that she was becoming quieter, he turned to the prisoner.
"You heard all that went on, I know," said the detective."That's why I put you in the next room.""Yes, I heard," was the calm answer."But what of it? You can prove nothing only that women are fools.I shall hire a good lawyer and - poof! What would you have - a man must live.Bigamy, it is not such a serious charge.""Oh, no, there are worse," said the colonel calmly."You're going to hear one presently.She told me just what I wanted to know, as I thought she would if I could get her roused up enough against you.So, you weren't riding, as you said, with her the day Mr.Carwell came to his end.I never thought you were, Jean of the many names.And now, officer, if you'll take him back and lock him up, I guess this will be about all to-day." "But I want to get bail!" exclaimed the prisoner."I have a right to bebailed.My lawyer says so."
"There isn't any bail in your case," said the detective.
"Pooh!Nonsense!Bigamy, it is not such a serious charge.""Oh, didn't I tell you? I meant to," said the colonel gently."You're under another accusation now.Jean Forette, to call you by your latest alias, you're under arrest, charged with the murder, by poison, of Horace Carwell, and I think we'll come pretty near convicting you by the testimony of Mazi.Ah, would you - not quite!"He struck down the hand the prisoner had raised to his mouth, and there rolled over the floor a little capsule.The top came off and a whitepowder spilled out.
"Don't step on it!" warned the colonel as several other officers came in to assist in handling the prisoner, who was struggling violently."It's probably the same poison, mixed with French dope, that killed Mr.Carwell.Jean had it hidden in the collar band of his shirt ready for emergencies.But you shan't cheat the chair, Jean of the many names!"They led the Frenchman away, struggling and screaming that he was innocent, that it was all a mistake.By turns he prayed and blasphemed horribly.
"That's the way they usually do when they can't get a shot of their dope," said the jail physician, after he had visited the prisoner and given him a big dose of bromide."He'll be a wreck from now on.He's rotten with some French drug, the like of which I've never seen used before."The coroner's jury had been called together again.Once more the sordid evidence was gone over, but this time there was more of it, and it had to do with a story told weepingly on the stand by Mazi, and corroborated by Colonel Ashley.
And a little later, when the jury filed in, it was to report:
"We find that Horace Carwell came to his death through poison administered by Jean Carnot, alias Jean Forette, with intent to kill."And a little later, when the grand jury had indicted him, the man's nerve failed him completely, because his supply of drug was kept from him and he babbled the truth like a child, weeping.
He had stolen two hundred dollars from the pocketbook of Mr.Carwell the day before the championship golf game, and, the crime having been detected by Viola's father, the chauffeur had been given twenty-four hours in which to return the money or be exposed.He was in financial straits, and, as developed later, had stolen elsewhere, so that he feared arrest and exposure and was at his wit's end.He had spent much of the money on Mazi, whom he induced to go through a secret marriage ceremony with him.
Then Jean, like a cornered rat, and crazy from the drug he had filled himself with, conceived the idea of poisoning Mr.Carwell.That wouldprevent arrest and exposure, he reasoned.
The chauffeur found his opportunity when he was ordered to stop the big red, white and blue car at a roadhouse just prior to the game.Mr.Carwell was thirsty, and in bad humor, and ordered the chauffeur to bring out some champagne.It was into this that Jean slipped the poison, mixed with some of his own drug which he knew would retard the action of the deadly stuff for some time.And it worked just as he had expected, dropping Mr.Carwell in his tracks about two hours later, as he made the stroke that won the game.
"But how did a chauffeur know so much about poison and dope as to be able to mix a dose that would fool the chemists?" asked Jack Young of his chief, a little later.
"Jean's father was a French chemist, and a clever one.It was there that Jean learned to mix the powder dope he took, and he learned much of other drugs.I suspect, though I can't prove it, that he poisoned his first wife.A devil all the way through," answered the colonel.
