Something again went wrong with Dr Gollipeck’s inside, and he grated out a hard ironical laugh.

‘Do I look afraid?’ he asked, spreading out his hands.

Vandeloup stooped down to the portmanteau lying open at his feet, and picked up a revolver, which he pointed straight at Gollipeck.

‘You make an excellent target,’ he observed, quickly, putting his finger on the trigger.

Dr Gollipeck sat down, and arranged his handkerchief once more over his knees.

‘Very likely,’ he answered, coolly, ’but a target you won’t practise on.’

‘Why not?’ asked Vandeloup, still keeping his finger on the trigger.

‘Because the pistol-shot would alarm the house,’ said Gollipeck, serenely, ’and if I was found dead, you would be arrested for my murder.  If I was only wounded I could tell a few facts about M. Octave Braulard that would have an unpleasant influence on the life of M. Gaston Vandeloup.’

Vandeloup laid the pistol down on the mantelpiece with a laugh, lit a cigarette, and, sitting down in a chair opposite Gollipeck, began to talk.

‘You are a brave man,’ he said, coolly blowing a wreath of smoke, ’I admire brave men.’

‘You are a clever man,’ retorted the doctor; ‘I admire clever men.’

‘Very good,’ said Vandeloup, crossing one leg over the other.  ’As we now understand one another, I await your explanation of this visit.’

Dr Gollipeck, with admirable composure, placed his hands on his knees, and acceded to the request of M. Vandeloup.

‘I saw in the Ballarat and Melbourne newspapers,’ he said, quietly, ’that Selina Sprotts, the servant of Mrs Villiers, was dead.  The papers said foul play was suspected, and according to the evidence of Kitty Marchurst, whom, by the way, I remember very well, the deceased had been poisoned.  An examination was made of the body, but no traces of poison were found.  Knowing you were acquainted with Madame Midas, and recognising this case as a peculiar one—­seeing that poison was asserted to have been given, and yet no appearances could be found—­I came down to Melbourne, saw the doctor who had analysed the body, and heard what he had to say on the subject.  The symptoms were described as apoplexy, similar to those of a woman who died in Paris called Adele Blondet, and whose case was reported in a book by Messrs Prevol and Lebrun.  Becoming suspicious, I assisted at a chemical analysis of the body, and found that the woman Sprotts had been poisoned by an extract of hemlock, the same poison used in the case of Adele Blondet.  The man who poisoned Adele Blondet was sent to New Caledonia, escaped from there, and came to Australia, and prepared this poison at Ballarat; and why I called here tonight was to know the reason M. Octave Braulard, better known as Gaston Vandeloup, poisoned Selina Sprotts in mistake for Madame Midas.’

If Doctor Gollipeck had thought to upset Vandeloup by this recital, he was never more mistaken in his life, for that young gentleman heard him coolly to the end, and taking the cigarette out of his mouth, smiled quietly.