“What a fiend he must be!” I said, with a shudder.

But Godfrey shook his head quickly.

“Don’t get that idea of him,” he protested earnestly.  “Up to the time of his arrival in New York, he had never killed any man except that traitor.  Him he had a certain right to kill—­according to thieves’ ethics, anyway.  His own life has been in peril scores of times, but he has never killed a man to save himself.  Put that down to his credit.”

“But Drouet and Vantine,” I objected.

“An accident for which he was in no way responsible,” said Godfrey promptly.

“You mean he didn’t kill them?”

“Most certainly not.  This last man he did kill was a traitor like the first.  Crochard, I think, reasons like this; to kill an adversary is too easy; it is too brutal; it lacks finesse.  Besides, it removes the adversary.  And without adversaries, Crochard’s life would be of no interest to him.  After he had killed his last adversary, he would have to kill himself.”

“I can’t understand a man like that,” I said.

“Well, look at this,” said Godfrey, and tapped the letter again.  “He honours me by considering me an adversary.  Does he seek to remove me?  On the contrary, he gives me a handicap.  He takes off his queen in order that it may be a little more difficult to mate me!”

“But, surely, Godfrey,” I protested, “you don’t take that letter seriously!  If he wrote it at all, he wrote it merely to throw you off the track.  If he says Wednesday, he really intends to try for the cabinet to-morrow.”

“I don’t think so.  I told you he would think me only a tyro.  And, beside him, that is all I am.  Do you know where he wrote that letter, Lester?  Right in the Record office.  That is a sheet of our copy paper.  He sat down there, right under my nose, wrote that letter, dropped it into my box, and walked out.  And all that sometime this evening, when the office was crowded.”

“But it’s absurd for him to write a letter like that, if he really means it.  You have only to warn the police....”

“You’ll notice he says it is in confidence.”

“And you’re going to keep it so?”

“Certainly I am; I consider that he has paid me a high compliment.  I have shown it to no one but you—­also in confidence.”

“It is not the sort of confidence the law recognises,” I pointed out.  “To keep a confidence like that is practically to abet a felony.”

“And yet you will keep it,” said Godfrey cheerfully.  “You see, I am going to do everything I can to prevent that felony.  And we will see if Crochard is really invincible!”

“I’ll keep it,” I agreed, “because I think the letter is just a blind.  And, by the way,” I added, “I have a letter from Armand & Son confirming the fact that their books show that the Boule cabinet was bought by Philip Vantine.  Under the circumstances, I shall have to claim it and hand it over to the Metropolitan.”