But the minute the outer door
closed I picked up the telephone to communicate with the vestibule. It
was a ground-floor apartment, as you know. The one chance was to have
the hall porter intercept Clarke in the vestibule. As a matter of fact,
the telephone was not answered for fully a minute or so--too late, of
course! Clarke had vanished. The boy at the telephone desk said he had
been busy with another call. That is all, Jimmie. I saw clearly that
night that there was only one thing left for me to do if I hoped to save
my life, and that was to fight Clarke with his own weapons. And so I
wrote you; and you know now why Marie LaSalle 'left the city for an
extended trip,' as her bankers informed you, and why during all these
months I have 'disappeared.'
"I come now to the last thing I have to say--the reason for writing this
letter. My death was essential to Clarke, because he believed that I was
the _only_ one who could positively identify him _as_ 'Clarke,' and
that, therefore, as long as I lived he could not resume his own identity
and personal freedom of action for fear that I might, even if only
through inadvertence, recognise him. He could take no chances.
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