William Le Queux

“ Garfield? Come, it is now my turn to be a little inquisitive,” and she laughed again.
“About a certain little matter in which we are mutually interested,” was my evasive answer. Then, after a pause, I looked straight into her eyes, and added very earnestly: “I wonder whether if I should require your help, Mrs. Cullerton, you would assist me?”
“In what way?”
“At present I cannot tell. To be frank, I am striving to solve a great and inscrutable mystery. Just now I am amazed and bewildered. But I feel that you are the only person who could help me—because you and I are equally in peril.” ”

“ De Gex?”
“Please recollect, Mrs. Cullerton, that I am here first in your interests, and secondly in my own. You and I are now both marked down as victims, because both of us are in possession of certain knowledge which would, if exposed, bring obloquy and prosecution upon an exceedingly wealthy man. Your husband, yourself, and myself, are merely pawns in the clever game which this man is playing—a mysterious game, I admit, and one in which he is actively assisted by Doctor Moroni—but also one in which, if we are not both very wary, we shall find ourselves the victims of fatal circumstances.” ”

“ She might seek De Gex when he returned from Algiers and tell him of our interview! If she did, then all hope of elucidating the mystery of Gabrielle Engledue’s death would be at once swept away.
Yet I held before me the fact that the millionaire, hand-in-glove with that scoundrelly Italian, intended to cast me into my grave. The Italians have all through the centuries been experts in secret assassination. The Doges of Venice, the Borgias, and the Medici have all had secret poisoners in their pay. ”