“Well, if they do agree,” he said very gently, “what then?”
“What then?” The detective seemed taken aback. “But—I shall have proved then that you are King Victor!”
But for the first time, a shade of uncertainty crept into his manner.
“That will doubtless be a great satisfaction to you,” said Anthony. “But I don’t quite see where it’s going to hurt me. I’m not admitting anything, but supposing, just for the sake of argument, that I was King Victor—I might be trying to repent, you know.”
“Repent?”
“That’s the idea. Put yourself in King Victor’s place, Lemoine. Use your imagination. You’ve just come out of prison. You’re getting on in life. You’ve lost the first fine rapture of the adventurous life. Say, even, that you meet a beautiful girl. You think of marrying and settling down somewhere in the country where you can grow vegetable marrows. You decide from henceforth to lead a blameless life. Put yourself in King Victor’s place. Can’t you imagine feeling like that?”
“I do not think that I should feel like that,” said Lemoine with a sardonic smile.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t,” admitted Anthony. “But then you’re not King Victor, are you? You can’t possibly know what he feels like.”
“But it is nonsense, what you are saying there,” spluttered the Frenchman.
“Oh, no, it isn’t. Come now, Lemoine, if I’m King Victor, what have you against me after all? You could never get the necessary evidence in the old, old days, remember. I’ve served my sentence, and that’s all there is to it. I suppose you could arrest me for the French equivalent of ‘Loitering with intent to commit a felony,” but that would be poor satisfaction, wouldn’t it?”
“You forget,” said Lemoine. “America! How about this business of obtaining money under false pretences, and passing yourself off as Prince Nicholas Obolovitch?”
“No good, Lemoine,” said Anthony, “I was nowhere near America at the time. And I can prove that easily enough. If King Victor impersonated Prince Nicholas in America, then I’m not King Victor. You’re sure he was impersonated? That it wasn’t the man himself?”
Superintendent Battle suddenly interposed.
214
