• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"You!" he murmured hoarsely.

"Yes, I!" she cried. "The woman you kicked out like a sick dog! I've found you at last, and now I'll make you suffer all I did and more - you - devil!"

"Softly, Kate, softly!" murmured the colonel. But she did not heed him.

"You - you spawn of hell !" she cried. "It was you who sent me down where I am - where not a decent woman will look at me and a decent man won't speak to me. You did it - you left me to rot in my shame so you could find some one else - some one younger and prettier to fondle and kiss and - Oh, God!"

She sank in a shuddering heap on the sand at the feet of the man who had broken her body and spirit, and lay there, sobbing out her anger.

"Let her stay there a little," said the colonel softly. "She'll feel better after this outburst."

"Jean! Jean! What is it all about?" begged the girl who still maintained her place beside him. "Oh, speak to me! Tell me! Who is she?" and she pointed to the huddled figure on the sand.

"I'll tell you who she is," said Colonel Ashley. "She is the legal wife of Jean Carnot, alias Jean Forette, and - "

A scream from Mazi stopped him.

"Tell me it isn't true, Jean! Tell me it isn't true!" begged the girl.

Jean Carnot did not speak.

"He knows it is true," said the colonel. "And now, my French auto friend, I've come to take you into custody on a charge of - "

"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" cried the man. "I swear I didn't do it. I was going to throw the glass away but he grabbed it from me, and - "

"I arrest you on a charge of bigamy," went on the calm voice of Colonel Ashley. And then, as he saw Mazi stagger as though about to fall, he added:

"All right, Jack. I'll take care of her. You put the bracelets on him. And see that they're good and tight. We don't want him slipping out and getting married again. He doesn't have much regard for bonds of any sort, matrimonial or legal."

And then he lifted poor, little Mazi up and carried her into the cottage, while Morocco Kate got slowly to her feet and sat down on the bench in the darkest shadows, sobbing.

CHAPTER XXIV

STILL WATERS

"The records show that Henri Margot, alias Jean Carnot alias Jean Forette was married to Isabel Pelubit in Paris on March 17, four years ago, and that she died under suspicious circumstances three months later, leaving her husband all of a snug little fortune she possessed.

"All lies, monsieur - all lies! I do not believe anything you tell me!"

"Well, that's very foolish of you, Mazi, for you can easily prove for yourself everything I tell you, and it will be better for you, in the end, if you do believe."

"I do not. But go on with - more lies!" She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.

Colonel Ashley leafed over a sheaf of papers he had spread out on the table in front of him. He and Mazi sat in a room in police headquarters in Lakeside. It was the day following the procession to the cottage on the moor.

"The records show," went on the detective, "that Henri Margot was arrested in Paris, charged with having poisoned his wife so that he might spend on another woman the money she possessed. But he was not convicted, chiefly because the chemists could not agree on the kind of poison that had caused death."

"All lies - I do not believe," said Mazi, stolidly.

"Um!" mused the colonel. "Well, Mazi, you're more stubborn than I thought. But it doesn't make any difference to me, you know. I'm paid for all this. Now let's see - what's next? Oh, yes. Then the records show that Henri, or Jean, whichever you choose to call him, came to this country. He fell in love with a pretty girl - she wasn't as pretty as you, Mazi, I'll say that - but he fell in love with her and married her - or pretended to. However, it was a fake ceremony, and she couldn't prove anything when he had spent all her money and tossed her aside. So there wasn't anything we could do to him that time."

"More lies," said Mazi, calmly - or at least with the appearance of calmness.

"The records show," went on the inexorable voice of Colonel Ashley, that next Jean Carnot, as he