‘Ah! As to that—’ Aribert began. ‘If you don’t mind, we’ll discuss that later, Prince,’ Racksole interrupted him.
They were in the proprietor’s private room.
‘I want to tell you all about last night,’ Racksole resumed, ‘about my capture of Jules, and my examination of him this morning.’ And he launched into a full account of the whole thing, down to the least details. ‘You see,’ he concluded, ‘that our suspicions as to Bosnia were tolerably correct. But as regards Bosnia, the more I think about it, the surer I feel that nothing can be done to bring their criminal politicians to justice.’
‘And as to Jules, what do you propose to do?’
‘Come this way,’ said Racksole, and led Aribert to another room. A sofa in this room was covered with a linen cloth. Racksole lifted the cloth—he could never deny himself a dramatic moment—and disclosed the body of a dead man.
It was Jules, dead, but without a scratch or mark on him.
‘I have sent for the police—not a street constable, but an official from Scotland Yard,’ said Racksole.
‘How did this happen?’ Aribert asked, amazed and startled. ‘I understood you to say that he was safely immured in the bedroom.’
‘So he was,’ Racksole replied. ‘I went up there this afternoon, chiefly to take him some food. The commissionaire was on guard at the door. He had heard no noise, nothing unusual. Yet when I entered the room Jules was gone.
He had by some means or other loosened his fastenings; he had then managed to take the door off the wardrobe. He had moved the bed in front of the window, and by pushing the wardrobe door three parts out of the window and lodging the inside end of it under the rail at the head of the bed, he had provided himself with a sort of insecure platform outside the window. All this he did without making the least sound. He must then have got through the window, and stood on the little platform. With his fingers he would just be able to reach the outer edge of the wide cornice under the roof of the hotel. By main strength of arms he had swung himself on to this cornice, and so got on to the roof proper. He would then have the run of the whole roof.