“Of course he had no such idea in his mind, except perhaps at first, with himself as head or Emperor. But he got these people eating out of his hand—Mrs. Fawcette was one of them—and they brought others. And among the others were often men of real power and influence whom the Emperor succeeded either in enlisting in his cause, blackmailing or drugging. If they were men in important political positions, he got secrets out of them and then blackmailed them. Or he threatened to destroy their public lives for them unless they did as he wanted. “But his safest and most effective method was to drug his victims so subtly and with such skillfully prepared drugs that they acquired the drug habit and the drug hunger before they were aware of it. Then, as he was the only source of supply, they would do anything he told them to, to get some more of the same.” “But surely,” Moore interrupted, “you don’t believe that he could have got away with anything like that for long, do you, sir?” The Chief shook his head, “I don’t know, Moore,” he answered. “Nobody would have dreamed that Napoleon could get away with what he did get away with. And immense wealth means immense power in the world of to-day, as the history of Hugo Stinnes in Germany shows. Without a doubt this Emperor was a little mad—perhaps more than a little. But who can say where genius ends and madness begins? And the man was an organizing genius, an electrical genius, an executive genius in his power over men, had a genius for making money and was an expert chemist. What is more, he had a big vision, such as it was. And that is everything. “From the rambling versions I have been able to get out of the few of his men who were left alive, he intended to make his power practically absolute in this country by the underground methods I have told you. Then, according to one man, he intended to make himself Emperor of the World. That was the little plan he had up his sleeve!” We all laughed. But when I glanced at the Chief’s face I was amazed to see that his smile was perfunctory. Evidently he did not take this Russian’s crazy ambition quite as lightly as we did. “He was about the most dangerous customer I’ve run up against in my career, anyway!” he added, a moment later. “Tell me, Chief,” I asked him, “how did he manage to run a place like that without somebody getting on to it? I’ve been wondering about that. I should think local people would have noticed all the activity involved in running such a _ménage_. Think of the supplies and the power he used for that big house and that huge staff.” The Chief laughed. “That puzzled me for a while too. But he was too clever for that. All his supplies were brought in by lighter from New York and unloaded on the beach at night. You saw one party at it. He brought coal that way too. And he had a big dynamo brought from New York in the same way for his electric power. He sent a man to the village for a few small supplies every little while as a blind.”