You are a thief, and the associate of thieves, but you have never, so far as our records go, been convicted.

Your real name is not Lamotte, though you have passed under it long enough in New York to establish some sort of claim to it, and you were sentenced to two years' imprisonment at Toulon eight years ago for a breach of military discipline.

On your release you consorted with anarchists in Paris, and, to escape arrest as a suspect after a dynamite outrage on the Grand Boulevard, you emigrated to America.

You are a clever mechanic, and, had you tried to earn an honest living, you would have succeeded, but some kink in your nature drove you to crime, mixed up with a good deal of political froth.

When you heard that precious pair of fanatics, Martiny and Rossi, plotting in Morris Siegelman's cafe to prevent a marriage between an English lady of great wealth and a wretched little Frenchman, so that the cause of a Hungarian party might benefit if Count Ladislas Vassilan secured the lady and the money, especially the money, you thought you saw a way towards striking a blow at the Austrian monarchy and also benefiting yourself.