"Honest confession is good for the soul," said Sprouse easily. "I wasn't the only one who was trying to get the baubles, my friend. It was a game in which only the best man could win."
"I know the truth now about Roon and Paul," said Barnes significantly.
"You do?" sneered Sprouse. "I'll bet you a thousand to one you do not. If the girl told you what she believes to be true, she didn't have it straight at all. She was led to believe that they were a couple of crooks and that they fixed me in that Tavern down there. Isn't that what she told you? Well, that story was cooked up for her special benefit. I don't mind telling you the truth about them, and you can tell it to her. Roon was the Baron Hedlund--But all this can wait. Now--"
"Did you shoot either of those men?"
"I did not. Baron Hedlund was shot, I firmly believe, by Prince Ugo. I might as well go on with the story now and have it over with. Tell that chauffeur to take a little stroll. He doesn't have to hear the story, you know. Hedlund came up here a week or so ago to keep a look- out for his wife. The Baroness is supposed to be deeply enamoured of Prince Ugo. He found letters which seemed to indicate that she was planning to join the Prince up here. In any event, he came to watch. Well, she didn't come. She had been headed off, but he didn't know that. When he heard of the arrival of a lady at Green Fancy the other afternoon, he got busy. He went right up there with blood in his eye. I admit that I am the gentleman who telephoned the warning up to the Prince. They tried to head the Baron and his man off at the cross- roads, but he beat them to it. If there was to be a fight, they didn't want it to happen anywhere near the house. Part of them, led by Ugo himself, took a short cut up through the woods and met the two men in the road.
"There is only one man in the world to-day who is a better shot at night than Prince Ugo, and modesty keeps me from mentioning his illustrious name. That's why I believe Ugo is the one who got the Baron,--or Roon, as you know him. The other fellow was halted at the cross-roads when he made a run for it. A couple of men had been sent there for just such an emergency. Hedlund was a curiously chivalrous chap. He went to extreme measures to protect his wife's good name by wiping out all means of identification. His wife's good name! It is to laugh! Now, that is the true story of the little affair, and if you are as much of a gentleman as I take you to be, Barnes, you will respect Hedlund's desire to shield the woman he loved, and let him lie up yonder in an unmarked grave. That is what he figured on, you know, in case things went against him, and I'll stake my head that if you put it up to the Countess Therese, she will feel as I do about it. She will beg you to keep the secret. Hedlund was a lifelong friend of her family. He was beloved by all of them. He married an actress in Vienna three or four years ago. On second thoughts, if I were you I'd spare the Countess. I'd let her go on thinking that the story she has heard is true,--at least for the time being. She's a nice girl and there's no sense in giving her any unnecessary pain. But that's up to you. You can do as you please about it.