“I ask you again,” repeated Armitage, “whether you follow me.  There must be no mistake.”

Oscar, anxious to take his own part in the conversation, prodded Zmai in the ribs with a pistol barrel, and the big fellow growled and nodded his head.

“There is a house in the outskirts of Vienna where you have been employed at times as gardener, and another house in Geneva where you wait for orders.  At this latter place it was my great pleasure to smash you in the head with a boiling-pot on a certain evening in March.”

The man scowled and ejaculated an oath with so much venom that Armitage laughed.

“Your conspirators are engaged upon a succession of murders, and when they have removed the last obstacle they will establish a new Emperor-king in Vienna and you will receive a substantial reward for what you have done—­”

The blood suffused the man’s dark face, and he half rose, a great roar of angry denial breaking from him.

“That will do.  You tried to kill me on the King Edward; you tried your knife on me again down there in Judge Claiborne’s garden; and you came up here tonight with a plan to kill my man and then take your time to me.  Give me the mail, Oscar.”

He opened the letters which Oscar had brought and scanned several that bore a Paris postmark, and when he had pondered their contents a moment he laughed and jumped from the table.  He brought a portfolio from his bedroom and sat down to write.

“Don’t shoot the gentleman as long as he is quiet.  You may even give him a glass of whisky to soothe his feelings.”

Armitage wrote: 

* * * * *

“MONSIEUR: 

“Your assassin is a clumsy fellow and you will do well to send him back to the blacksmith shop at Toplica.  I learn that Monsieur Durand, distressed by the delay in affairs in America, will soon join you—­is even now aboard the Tacoma, bound for New York.  I am profoundly grateful for this, dear Monsieur, as it gives me an opportunity to conclude our interesting business in republican territory without prejudice to any of the parties chiefly concerned.

“You are a clever and daring rogue, yet at times you strike me as immensely dull, Monsieur.  Ponder this:  should it seem expedient for me to establish my identity—­which I am sure interests you greatly—­before Baron von Marhof, and, we will add, the American Secretary of State, be quite sure that I shall not do so until I have taken precautions against your departure in any unseemly haste.  I, myself, dear friend, am not without a certain facility in setting traps.”

* * * * *

Armitage threw down the pen and read what he had written with care.  Then he wrote as signature the initials F.A., inclosed the note in an envelope and addressed it, pondered again, laughed and slapped his knee and went into his room, where he rummaged about until he found a small seal beautifully wrought in bronze and a bit of wax.  Returning to the table he lighted a candle, and deftly sealed the letter.  He held the red scar on the back of the envelope to the lamp and examined it with interest.  The lines of the seal were deep cut, and the impression was perfectly distinct, of F.A. in English script, linked together by the bar of the F.