The General walked towards the party very much with the air of one who had come to make some casual inquiry. It was only when he was recognized that a little interested murmur stole around the room. He walked to within a few feet of the Frenchman and his right hand seemed to have disappeared for a moment.
'Gentlemen,' he said, without unduly raising his voice but with curious distinctness, 'the man whom you are entertaining here as an emissary from our French allies, is an impostor, a German and a spy. He cost me, a few weeks ago, the lives of two thousand of my men. A far smaller thing, he is responsible for the ruin of my reputation. This is less than he deserves.'
With hand as steady as a rock, the General held his revolver out before him and deliberately fired three times at the man whom he had accused, and who had fallen forward now, his outstretched hands sweeping the wineglasses from in front of him--stone dead. The General watched his victim without emotion. He even leaned forward to make sure that the wounds were mortal. Then he walked deliberately out into the garden, heedless of the shrieking of the women, the crowd of diners who had sprung to their feet, the passing of the paralysis which had seemed to keep every one in the room seated and silent.
They found the proofs upon his body that night--horrifying, stupefying proofs--and the censor's hand came down. No word of that tragedy ever appeared under any sensational headline in any newspaper. In the face of that grim silence, even many of those who had been present found themselves wondering whether that lightning tragedy had not been a nightmare of the brain. To Suzanne de Freyne, however, it remained always one of the tense moments of her life. The General, with the revolver still in his hand, turned towards her with a polite gesture and a happy smile as he led the way into the garden. He tossed the weapon into a bed of geraniums and seemed utterly indifferent to the turmoil around.
'You were right, young lady,' he said. 'That was the man.'
There was a vigour in her walk, a determination in her face, which made Lavendale pause for an instant before he crossed the street to accost Suzanne de Freyne. It was perfectly clear to him that she was bound upon a serious errand. She was dressed with her usual subdued elegance but with more, even, than her usual simplicity. In her black tailor-made costume, her small hat and neat patent shoes, she looked like the Rue de la Paix at four o'clock in the afternoon during its halcyon days. He was forced to quicken his pace to intercept her.