A man doesn't change his name
unless he's got some shady reason for it. Every court of law knows that.
You dallied for a day or two at Arles, getting this woman to write a
lying letter to your wife saying that you were down with fever. We have
that letter."
"We!"
"Yes, _we_. We have that letter. I advised your wife to let me keep it
for possible emergencies. I have it in this office along with the other
evidence. I don't bluff--shall I ring and have my secretary show it to
you?"
"Get on."
"Then you moved to Nimes, staying for shame's sake at different houses.
Hers was the Hotel de Provence, and yours was the Villa Clementine. You
went lovemaking with this woman in the moonlight, up to a quiet place on
the hillside, and there you nearly got what was coming to you from a
peasant called Crau. Then you had this Verney woman stay with you in
your Villa Clementine, and finally you took her off to Wiesbaden."
Larssen ostentatiously pressed an electric bell.
"I'll give you chapter and verse," he said.
Morris Sylvester came in quietly from his room close by, a slow smile
under his heavy dark moustache, and nodded greeting to Matheson. He had
heard by the telephone device all of his chief's case against Matheson,
and was quite ready to take up his cue.
"Sylvester, you recognize this man?" said Larssen.
"Yes. He is the Mr John Riviere I shadowed at Arles and Nimes."
Larssen turned to the financier. "Want to ask him any questions? Ask
anything you like.
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