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“Asleep?” asked Cooley.

“No.”

The coverlet was removed by a shaking hand.

“Murder!” exclaimed Cooley sympathetically, at sight of the other’s face. “A night off certainly does things to you! Better let me get you some–“

“No. I’ll be all right–after while.”

“Then I’ll go right ahead with our little troubles. I’ve decided to leave for Paris by the one-thirty and haven’t got a whole lot of time. Cornish is here with me in the hall: he’s got something to say that’s important for you to hear, and I’m goin’ to bring him right in.” He waved his hand toward the door, which he had left open. “Come along, Cornish. Poor ole Mellin’ll play Du Barry with us and give us a morning leevy while he listens in a bed with a palanquin to it. Now let’s draw up chairs and be sociable.”

The journalist came in, smoking a long cigar, and took the chair the youth pushed toward him; but, after a twinkling glance through his big spectacles at the face on the pillow, he rose and threw the cigar out of the window.

“Go ahead,” said Cooley. “I want you to tell him just what you told me, and when you’re through I want to see if he doesn’t think I’m Sherlock Holmes’ little brother.”

“If Mr. Mellin does not feel too ill,” said Cornish dryly; “I know how painful such cases sometimes–“

“No.” Mellin moistened his parched lips and made a pitiful effort to smile. “I’ll be all right very soon.”

“I am very sorry,” began the journalist, “that I wasn’t able to get a few words with Mr. Cooley yesterday evening. Perhaps you noticed that I tried as hard as I could, without using actual force”–he laughed–“to detain him.”

“You did your best,” agreed Cooley ruefully, “and I did my worst. Nobody ever listens till the next day!”

“Well, I’m glad no vital damage was done, anyway,” said Cornish. “It would have been pretty hard lines if you two young fellows had been poor men, but as it is you’re probably none the worse for a lesson like this.”

“You seem to think seven thousand dollars is a joke,” remarked Cooley.

Cornish laughed again. “You see, it flatters me to think my time was so valuable that a ten minutes’ talk with me would have saved so much money.”

“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.”