“Let us be thankful for what it did do, last week.”

“One lying mouth stopped,” said I.

He nodded.  “And only an inferior reputation left to bolster up his certificate.”

I looked again at the copy.  “I wonder if that car, by any possibility, might have hit Witness, John Edwards, too?”

Courtney smiled.  “It’s dollars to nickels the same blow killed them both.”

“Then, it’s my word against hers and the certificate.”

“Not exactly.  It’s her word, her beauty and the certificate against your word, its corroborating circumstances and her history.”

“That sounds logical,” said I; “and yet, in fact, if there were nothing but her word it would still win out for Lotzen.  I may not marry the Princess so long as another woman claims to be my wife.”

Courtney frowned.  “But, if you prove her a liar by cold facts?”

“It will not suffice,” said I.  “All doubt must be removed.  She must admit her—­error.”

He raised his eyebrows, and out came the cigarette case.

“Then, do you appreciate that, until she does, you will have the disagreeable duty of preventing her from departing the Capital—­certainly the Kingdom?”

“Practically that,” I admitted.  “I have already directed that she be not permitted to leave Dornlitz.”

He shook his head.  “There, you send me over to the Enemy.  If she appeal to the Embassy I may not suffer her to be restrained.  She is an American subject.”

“Not at all,” said I.  “If she be my wife, she is a subject of His Majesty, Frederick the Third.”

“Come, Major, that’s not half bad,” he laughed.  “And I’ll stand on it, too.  So long as the lady claims to be the wife of a Grand Duke of Valeria, the American Ambassador will absolutely decline to interfere in her behalf.”

“She may get powerfully tired of having me for a husband,” I observed.

He studied the smoke-rings a bit.

“I wonder just how far it would be well for you to play the husband?” he mused.

“What’s that?” I almost shouted.

“I mean, how far would she be willing to go in this wife business?”

“God knows—­but the whole way, I fancy.”

“Would it be worth while to bluff her by pretending to acknowledge her claim and, then, inviting her to take her place at the head of your establishment?”

“Acknowledge her!  Not for the millionth of a second.”

“Oh, I mean only before witnesses who understood the scheme.”

“You don’t know the lady, Courtney,” I answered.  “She would call the bluff instantly—­and do it so well the witnesses, themselves, would be deceived and turned against me.”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “Lotzen seems to be uncommonly lucky in his leading woman,” he observed.

“The Devil usually helps his own,” said I.

Then, I hastened to the Palace.