Belleville bared his teeth just as I have seen a jackal grin. "You know how women love to glorify the objects of their admiration," he said slowly. "In their opinion the men they--they love--are always the wisest, the strongest, the most astute and the best. I am free to admit, my dear Pinsent, that you are by no means a fool. You have no doubt a fairly keen intelligence--but Miss Ottley has placed you on an alabaster pedestal--pedestal do I say? A pinnacle! She has actually ventured to contrast your ability with mine to my disparagement. She rejected my offer with disdain and challenged me to measure wits with you. And when I accepted the challenge she calmly predicted that you would defeat and destroy me. It thus became my duty to show her how mistaken and fallible in truth is her estimate of me. Weldon's death taught her nothing, absolutely nothing. She protested that if I was really the _deus ex machina_ it only proved me to be an ordinary sort of heartless murderer. Weldon's particular order of intellect never impressed her, it appears. But yours, in her eyes, is little short of divine. There was no help then but to dispose of you in such a way as to open her eyes. It is no boast to say that I could have killed you at any time of the day or night I pleased for weeks past. Had I done so, however, I should have been constrained so to arrange matters--as in Weldon's case--as to make your end appear natural; and I'm afraid Miss Ottley would on that account have been inclined to consider, for a second time, me a lucky prophet and you the second victim of an inscrutable Providence. That is her present attitude toward Weldon's final exit from the stage of life. I was obliged then so to arrange matters as to get you into my power, but, _bien entendu_, without the fanfare of trumpets. I flatter myself that I have managed very well. You may pretend the contrary if you choose, but you'll not convince me. I have had your every movement carefully followed, and I believe that outside of this house there is not a soul in England of your acquaintance who has a doubt but that you are on your way to Egypt. And I have neglected no precautions that could ever give rise to such a doubt. Immediately you quitted your lodgings in Soho this evening, my emissary entered your room by means of a master key and brought away your trunks. No one saw him, for he was invisible; and no one saw your trunks depart, for he made them invisible, too. They are at this moment in this house. You doubt me?" "Yes," I cried. "I doubt you; produce them!" "I am too comfortable to move," smiled Belleville. "But here is something I found at the bottom of one of them."