“Ingenious at argument as you are,” he remarked quietly, “you will hardly deny that Knight, of Omaha, is the exact opposite of Forbes, of London.  My nose is almost Jewish—­my complexion is dark as an Arab’s.  Still, I suppose I am the sallow, snub-nosed Forbes described here, inasmuch as I have stolen Forbes’s fingers and lost them again by a most preposterous method.”

“The colour of the face is easily altered,” said Kennedy.  “A little picric acid will do that.  The ingenious rogue Sarcey in Paris eluded the police very successfully until Dr. Charcot exposed him and showed how he changed the arch of his eyebrows and the wrinkles of his face.  Much is possible to-day that would make Frankenstein and Dr. Moreau look clumsy and antiquated.”

A sharp feminine voice interrupted.  It was the woman, who had kept silent up to this time.  “But I have read in one of the papers this morning that a Mr. Williams was found dead in an automobile accident up the Hudson yesterday.  I remember reading it, because I am afraid of accidents myself.”

All eyes were now fixed on Kennedy.  “That body,” he answered quickly, “was a body purchased by you at a medical school, brought in your car to Riverwood, dressed in Williams’s clothes with a watch that would show he was Forbes, placed on the track in front of the auto, while you two watched the Buffalo express run it down, and screamed.  It was a clever scheme that you concocted, but these facts do not agree.”

He laid the measurements of the corpse obtained by Burke and those from the London police card side by side.  Only in the roughest way did they approximate each other.

“Your honour, I appeal to your sense of justice,” cried our prisoner impatiently.  “Hasn’t this farce been allowed to go far enough?  Is there any reason why this fake detective should make fools out of us all and keep my wife longer in this court?  I’m not disposed to let the matter drop.  I wish to enter a charge against him of false arrest and malicious prosecution.  I shall turn the whole thing over to my attorney this afternoon.  The deuce with the races—­I’ll have justice.”

The man had by this time raised himself to a high pitch of apparently righteous wrath.  He advanced menacingly toward Kennedy, who stood with his shoulders thrown back, and his hands deep in his pockets, and a half amused look on his face.

“As for you, Mr. Detective,” added the man, “for eleven cents I’d lick you to within an inch of your life.  ‘Portrait parle,’ indeed!  It’s a fine scientific system that has to deny its own main principles in order to vindicate itself.  Bah!  Take that, you scoundrel!”

Harriet Wollstone threw her arms about him, but he broke away.  His fist shot out straight.  Kennedy was too quick for him, however.  I had seen Craig do it dozens of times with the best boxers in the “gym.”  He simply jerked his head to one side, and the blow passed just a fraction of an inch from his jaw, but passed it as cleanly as if it had been a yard away.