"What the devil do I want to arrest you for?" asked Peret, with feigned astonishment, "You yourself have said that I have no real evidence against you."
The lids of Deweese’s eyes narrowed and the lines around his mouth grew hard. The pupils of his eyes, contracted to half their usual size, looked like points of cold fire.
"If you are not here to arrest me, what's your game?" he demanded.
"Oh, I just wanted to see what effect my theories would have on you," replied Peret calmly, as he rose to his feet. "I am a close student of psychology, and I find much in you that interests me. Thanks for your hospitality, Monsieur," he continued, opening the door. "Perhaps I shall have an opportunity to return the courtesy some day, as I have no doubt we shall meet again."
"Rest assured of that," rejoined Deweese, with a sinister smile. "We shall certainly meet again."
"It is written," returned Peret.
He looked at Deweese for a moment, and then, with a bow, withdrew from the room.
CHAPTER IX.
THE WORM TURNS
WHEN the door had closed behind the detective, Deweese walked across the room and put his ear to the keyhole.
He heard the shrill chatter of Sing Tong Fat as he let Peret out of the house, and the slam of the front door when he closed it behind him. Heaving a sigh of relief, Deweese threw himself into a chair. The strain through which he had just come had been terrific. Ordinarily, he would have found a battle of wits with the detective much to his liking, for it was for just such games as this that he lived. But his experience with the Whispering Thing had left his nerves in such a state that he felt he had been no match for the Frenchman.
Nevertheless, now that he was at least temporarily unembarrassed by the detective's presence, his brain began to function more normally and he set about evolving plans to extricate himself from his hazardous position. What a devil the Frenchman was! The man's powers of deduction smacked of the supernatural. And yet—
He kitted his brow. Recalling to his mind his own blundering, it was not so difficult, after all, to perceive how the detective had arrived at his conclusions. He, Deweese, had laid his plans so carefully, that he had believed detection impossible. But now, viewing the working out of his plan in retrospection, he could see where he had erred, and cursed himself for his carelessness. His blunders, as Peret had implied, had been too obvious to escape notice. Should not the remarkable accuracy of Peret’s reasoning, therefore, be attributed to chance rather than to genius? The accursed dying speech of the scientist had given him the key to the mystery, and it was certainly only an ill chance that had led him to be on hand to hear it. With such a clue to work on, he reasoned, the solving of the ease had simply been a matter of routine. Without this clue, the detective would have been lost. The fact that he himself had been attacked by the Whispering Thing would have shielded him from suspicion.
As he thought of his chance encounter with the bat, he shuddered. The accident in itself proved his carelessness. It had indeed almost proved his death. As Peret had said, he had been a fool to linger near the scene of his crime, but he had been so sure, so confident, that he had done his work too well to fear detection. As for Peret—well, his very frankness proved that he was something of a fool. Who but an idiot would have exposed his hand when he knew that his opponent held the strongest cards!
Of course, there was a possibility that the Frenchman was holding something back, but what if he was? Was he, Count Vincent di Dalfonzo, "mystery man" of a hundred aliases and acknowledged by the police to be the cleverest international crook outside of prison bars, to be deprived of his liberty and a fortune by an imbecile of a private detective?
He laughed, and his laugh did not sound pleasant. After all, he had the formula, and the game was not yet lost. His blunders had not been as bad as they might have been. He would have been arrested at once, he argued, had Peret believed that there was even the slightest chance of convicting him. It only remained for him to make one imperative move, and then sit tight. The Frenchman was bluffing, or perhaps he was laying another of his diabolical traps. Well, he should see!
After fortifyng himself with a stiff drink of whisky from the flask in the table drawer, he tapped the hand-bell on the table, and Sing Tong Fat, as if he had been awaiting the summons, entered the room with noiseless tread.
"Did you let that blankety-blank Frenchman out?" demanded Deweese.
"Tchèe, tchée," chattered Sing Tong Fat. "He gone. Me watchee him glo dlown stleet. He allee samee tam fool clazy man. He say he blowee topee head off. Hoi, hoi." He drew one of the silken sleeves of his blouse across his face and looked at his master anxiously. "He say polis alle lound house in stleet, Fan-Fu. He talkee allee samee Victrolee—"
"The house is still under surveillance, is it?" observed Deweese, wrinkling his brow. "‘Well, so much the better. We work best when we work cautiously, and we are not likely to be incautious when we know we are watched."
He lighted a fresh cigarette and gazed reflectively at the thread of smoke that curled upward from the lighted end. The drink of whisky had cleared his brain, and, alert, feverishly bright-eyed, every nerve in tune, he was now the man who for years had matched wits with the continental police and eluded them at every turn. Sing Tong Fat, well aware of the seriousness of the situation, shuffled his feet uneasily. and waited, with an anxious look on his face, for his "master" to speak.
"Sing Tong Fat," said Deweese, finally, "you and I have been friends and co-workers for many years. We have associated in many dangerous enterprises and I have always been liberal when it came to a division of the spoils. As we have shared the pleasures of our adventures, so too have we shared their dangers. I feel it only fair to tell you, therefore, that our peril has never been so great as it is now. Unless we act quickly we are doomed. You follow me, do you not?"
Sing Tong Fat touched his forehead and gravely nodded.
"It seems as if Fate has been against us from the very beginning in the Q-gas business," resumed Deweese in an unemotional tone. "The murder of Berjet, while necessary, was unfortunate, and since then we have had one stroke of bad luck after the other. We erred in trying to kill the French detective in the manner we did. He should have been knifed, swiftly, surely, silently. The bat that I instructed you to put in his room failed to accomplish his death and gave him a clue which, if we are not careful, may prove to be our undoing. Most important of all, both of us have been recognized. So you can realize how serious the situation is."
"I await thy command, O Illustrious Master," said the Chinaman gravely, in his native tongue.
Deweese, as if he took this for granted, nodded and proceeded:
"Of the two of us you have the most cunning, and you therefore stand the better chance of eluding the police. This is not flattery; it is wisdom I have acquired through the years of my association with you. You are as elusive as
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