Such was the master hold gained by M. Paul in the first minute of the struggle; long and carefully he had practiced this coup with a wrestling professional.  It never failed, it could not fail, and, in savage triumph, he prolonged his victory, slowly increasing the pressure, slowly as he felt the tendons stretching, the bones cracking in this helpless right arm.  A few seconds more and the end would come, a few seconds more and—­then a crashing, shattering pain drove through Coquenil’s lower heart region, his arms relaxed, his hands relaxed, his senses dimmed, and he sank weakly to the ground.  His enemy had done an extraordinary thing, had delivered a blow not provided for in Jitsu tactics.  In spite of the torsion torture, he had swung his free arm under the detective’s lifted guard, not in Yokohama style but in the best manner of the old English prize ring, his clenched fist falling full on the point of the heart, full on the unguarded solar-plexus nerves which God put there for the undoing of the vainglorious fighters.  And Coquenil dropped like a smitten ox with this thought humming in his darkening brain:  “It was the left that spoke then.”

[Illustration:  “He prolonged his victory, slowly increasing the pressure.”]

As he sank to the ground M. Paul tried to save himself, and seizing his opponent by the leg, he held him desperately with his failing strength; but the spasms of pain overcame him, his muscles would not act, and with a furious sense of helplessness and failure, he felt the clutched leg slipping from his grasp.  Then, as consciousness faded, the brute instinct in him rallied in a last fierce effort and he bit the man deeply under the knee.

When Coquenil came to himself he was lying on the ground and several policemen were bending over him.  He lifted his head weakly and looked about him.  The stranger was gone.  The automobile was gone.  And it all came back to him in sickening memory, the flaunting challenge of this man, the fierce struggle, his own overconfidence, and then his crushing defeat.  Ah, what a blow that last one was with the conquering left!

And suddenly it flashed through his mind that he had been outwitted from the first, that the man’s purpose had not been at all what it seemed to be, that a hand-to-hand conflict was precisely what the stranger had sought and planned for, because—­because—­In feverish haste Coquenil felt in his breast pocket for the envelope with the precious leather fragments.  It was not there.  Then quickly he searched his other pockets.  It was not there. The envelope containing the woman’s name and address was gone.

CHAPTER X

GIBELIN SCORES A POINT