The criminologist controlled himself with difficulty.  He realized that an altercation with the prisoner would shatter his whole case, like a house of cards blown down by a vagrant breeze.  He sat down again, the mask of calm indifference playing over his features.

“And what then?”

“Is not that sufficient to interest you?  It will be another month before my trial, and my literary work has just begun.  The newspapers are filled with war news, which have ceased to be a nine days’ wonder.  I shall provide them with material which will be the story of the age!  Another month, and then?”

The prisoner lit the cigarette which he had accepted, and stretched back in the plain wooden chair to enjoy the misery of his victim.

“But, a month—­let me see?  That would enable me to do some corresponding myself, wouldn’t it?” and Shirley took out a memorandum book.  “You have degraded a splendid intellect, a gallant spirit and brought disgrace upon yourself, for this miserable ending.  You have ruthlessly murdered others, caring naught for the misery and wretchedness of those left behind.  Has it been worth it all, Warren?”

The other’s eyes twinkled, as he nodded.

“A wonderful game.  And I haven’t completed the score, even now.”

“You are right, Warren.  There is one soul more whom you have not affected.  It is too bad that you were not killed in the Albanian revolution,—­then you would have been on record as a hero instead of the vilest scoundrel in Christendom.”

Had the death-dealing current of the electric chair been turned upon Warren he could not have been more startled, as he sprang up.  His pallid face seemed to turn a sickly green, as his dark eyes opened in galvanized amazement.

“Albanian—­what do you mean?  I never saw Albania!”

“You will never see it again.  You will never see Budapesth again, either,” was the menacing continuation of the criminologist’s methodical speech.  “But a very old lady, the Countess Laschlas, will see the accounts of her son’s wretched death, in the New York papers which will be sent to her, in care of the American consul!”

It was merely a deductive guess:  but the shot struck the center of the bull’s-eye.  Warren, alias Count Laschlas, staggered back, and his nervous fingers touched the chilling surface of the stone wall.  He dropped his eyes, and then strove to regain his nonchalance.  It was a pitiable failure.

“Just as you have dealt to the children of others, so will you deal with your own mother, the last of a distinguished line of aristocrats.  I swear, by the memory of my own dead parents, that I will avenge the misery you have given to the innocent.  The good Book says, the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and the fourth generation.  But life to-day has taught me that the sins of the children are visited upon the fathers and the mothers—­especially,