THE DUKE’S MYSTERY
LITTLE more than five years ago, a series of robberies on a grand scale was perpetrated at the West End of London. There was hardly a tradesman of note who did not suffer from these depredations, which for a long while baffled all the skill and vigilance of the police.
After a lapse of perhaps six months from the formation of the belief that these robberies were the result of a concerted action by the rascaldom of the metropolis, the victims and their friends formed themselves into a committee, and I was retained to investigate the affair.
As the matter had by this time assumed great importance, I employed five or six assistants, and systematically went to work. The police were also on the alert, and special instructions were given from Scotland Yard that they should coöperate with me, or practically, I may say, act under my instructions.
It would be tedious to relate all the disguises and stratagems which I assumed and devised. It must suffice to say, that half a dozen men went through more variations in their appearance than the chameleon, and were nearly or quite ubiquitous during the investigation.
I saw that a gang had to be crushed. I knew that success or failure was but an issue of time and money. Of the former I could give and get as much as the associated tradesmen would pay for. Of the latter there would, I believed, be no stint. The parties affected, and liable to be affected, by the operations of the gang, were prepared to lay out all the cash needful to secure the punishment of the criminals.
The job was not a light one. We made a few mistakes, to the injury, however, of no one who had a character worth keeping. We got at times on wrong tracks. We were often on the heels of the thieves, and yet failed to grasp them. We were none of us faint-hearted, or lacking in patience. Each trip only made us walk the more carefully. Each blunder only made us wary. Each divergence only made us examine the supposed clues with greater nicety.
One morning a police constable and one of my men came to me with news.
“We have a clue, sir,” said police constable U 99.
“That’s well. What is it?” I observed.