I have arranged that you will receive ten thousand francs and your expenses for your services in this matter.  Under no conditions betray your connection with Herr Schmidt.  I was to have carried the packet to America myself and make the exchange but knowing your need of money I have secured the work for you.  You had better take your maid, as it is much better to travel with distinction in this case.  If, however, you accept this commission I shall consider you in honour bound to surrender your claim upon my name for which I agree to pay you fifty thousand francs upon my marriage with the American heiress of whom you know.  Please let me know immediately through our mutual friend Henri Duval whether this proposal is satisfactory.  Henri will tell you that fifty thousand is my ultimatum,

Chateaurouge.

“The scoundrel,” ground out Kennedy.  “He lured his wife from Paris to New York, thinking the Paris police too acute for him, I suppose.  Then by means of the treachery of the maid Louise and his friend Duval, a crook who would even descend to play the part of valet for him and fall in love with the maid, he has succeeded in removing the woman who stood between him and an American fortune.”

“Marie,” rambled Chateaurouge as he came blinking, sneezing, and choking out of his stupor, “Marie, you are clever, but not too clever for me.  This blackmailing must stop.  Miss Lovelace knows something, thanks to you, but she shall never know all—­never—­ never.  You—­you—­ugh!—­Stop.  Do you think you can hold me back now with those little white hands on my wrists?  I wrench them loose—­ so—­and—­ugh!—­What’s this?  Where am I?”

The man gazed dazedly at the manacles that held his wrists instead of the delicate hands he had been dreaming of as he lived over the terrible scene of his struggle with the woman who was his wife in the Vanderveer.

“Chateaurouge,” almost hissed Kennedy in his righteous wrath, “fake nobleman, real swindler of five continents.  Marie de Nevers alive stood in the way of your marriage to the heiress Miss Lovelace.  Dead, she prevents it absolutely.”

Craig continued to turn over the papers in his hand, as he spoke.  At last he came to a smaller packet in oiled silk.  As he broke the seal he glanced at it in surprise, then hurriedly exclaimed, “There, Burke.  Take these to the War Department and tell them they can turn out their lights and stop their telegrams.  This seems to be a copy of our government’s plans for the fortification of the Panama Canal, heights of guns, location of searchlights, fire control stations, everything from painstaking search of official and confidential records.  That is what this fellow obtained in exchange for his false blue prints of the supposed coaling station on the Pacific.

“I leave the Secret Service to find the leak in the War Department.  What I am interested in is not the man who played spy for two nations and betrayed one of them.  To me this adventurer who calls himself Chateaurouge is merely the murderer of Madame de Nevers.”