“I doubt it,” said Cooley. “Ten to one we'd neither of us have believed you--last night!” “I doubt it, too.” Cornish turned to Mellin. “I hear that you, Mr. Mellin, are still of the opinion that you were dealing with straight people?” Mellin managed to whisper “Yes.” “Then,” said Cornish, “I'd better tell you just what I know about it, and you can form your own opinion as to whether I do know or not. I have been in the newspaper business on this side for fifteen years, and my headquarters are in Paris, where these people are very well known. The man who calls himself 'Chandler Pedlow' was a faro-dealer for Tom Stout in Chicago when Stout's place was broken up, a good many years ago. There was a real Chandler Pedlow in Congress from a California district in the early nineties, but he is dead. This man's name is Ben Welch: he's a professional swindler; and the Englishman, Sneyd, is another; a quiet man, not so well known as Welch, and not nearly so clever, but a good 'feeder' for him. The very attractive Frenchwoman who calls herself 'Comtesse de Vaurigard' is generally believed to be Sneyd's wife, though I could not take the stand on that myself. Welch is the brains of the organization: you mightn't think it, but he's a very brilliant man--he might have made a great reputation in business if he'd been straight--and, with this woman's help, he's carried out some really astonishing schemes. His manner is clumsy; _he_ knows that, bless you, but it's the only manner he can manage, and she is so adroit she can sugar-coat even such a pill as that and coax people to swallow it. I don't know anything about the Italian who is working with them down here. But a gang of the Welch-Vaurigard-Sneyd type has tentacles all over the Continent; such people are in touch with sharpers everywhere, you see.” “Yes,” Cooley interpolated, “and with woolly little lambkins, too.” “Well,” chuckled Cornish, “that's the way they make their living, you know.” “Go on and tell him the rest of it,” urged Cooley. “About Lady Mount-Rhyswicke,” said Cornish, “it seems strange enough, but she has a perfect right to her name. She is a good deal older than she looks, and I've heard she used to be remarkably beautiful. Her third husband was Lord George Mount-Rhyswicke, a man who'd been dropped from his clubs, and he deserted her in 1903, but she has not divorced him. It is said that he is somewhere in South America; however, as to that I do not know.” Mr. Cornish put the very slightest possible emphasis on the word “know,” and proceeded: