He'll be murdered by an Austrian, and there'll be plenty of
evidence to show the connivance of the big folk in Vienna and
Berlin. It will all be an infernal lie, of course, but the case will look
black enough to the world. I'm not talking hot air, my friend. I
happen to know every detail of the hellish contrivance, and I can
tell you it will be the most finished piece of blackguardism since the
Borgias. But it's not going to come off if there's a certain man who
knows the wheels of the business alive right here in London on the
15th day of June. And that man is going to be your servant,
Franklin P. Scudder.'
I was getting to like the little chap. His jaw had shut like a rat-
trap, and there was the fire of battle in his gimlety eyes. If he was
spinning me a yarn he could act up to it.
'Where did you find out this story?' I asked.
'I got the first hint in an inn on the Achensee in Tyrol. That set me
inquiring, and I collected my other clues in a fur-shop in the Galician
quarter of Buda, in a Strangers' Club in Vienna, and in a little
bookshop off the Racknitzstrasse in Leipsic. I completed my evidence
ten days ago in Paris. I can't tell you the details now, for it's
something of a history. When I was quite sure in my own mind I
judged it my business to disappear, and I reached this city by a mighty
queer circuit.
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