“His body was never found. But pieces of another’s were. My sweet Celeste. I believe she thought that I was trapped in the fire and was trying… to save me.”

St. Ives’s silver prosthesis flashed in the moonlight.

“I was questioned by the authorities, but I knew enough of his ways to make it look like an accident. And what an accident!”

“But what… became of Rutherford?” Lloyd asked.

“Ah! That is the question,” the gambler said, nodding. “Well, you see, he was not a well-liked man. Almost everything he did he did in secret. He was a hard employer and a recluse who rarely ventured off the estate, and he seemed to have no close friends or immediate kin-other than my poor darling. The neighbor folk all feared him. There were stories about children in the vicinity who had gone missing. Who can say? But the members of the local constabulary were willing to take the path of least resistance. They came to believe that perhaps he had perished in the explosion, too-blown to bits, as I had hoped he would be.”

“But you think differently?” Lloyd asked.

“I am certain in my soul that he is still alive!” St. Ives ejaculated. “His will left his estate to some distant relative in Louisiana-probably himself under another name. His business interests were absorbed by a consortium called the Behemoth Innovation Company, and the estate was systematically denuded of all its objets and apparatus.”

“Did you investigate?” Lloyd asked meekly.

“Can you imagine me not doing so?” the gambler exclaimed, and then he drew his voice back down low. “The so-called relative now lives abroad, and I have not been able to find a trace of any news about him in any of the foreign papers-I even hired a London detective. Not a skerrick of a clue. As to the consortium, they have offices registered in several cities but there is no information about any of their directors.