I hastily sought a chair, my heart singing within me. Then I attempted to assume a mask of indifference, for M. Pigot was obviously annoyed at my presence, and I feared for a moment that his Gallic suavity would be strained to breaking. But Grady, if he noticed his guest's annoyance, paid no heed to it; and I began to suspect that the Frenchman's courtesy and good-breeding had ended by rubbing Grady the wrong way, they were in such painful contrast to his own hob-nailed manners. Whatever the cause, there was a certain malice in the smile he turned upon the Frenchman.
"And now, Moosseer Piggott," he said, settling back in his chair a little farther, "we're ready for the show."
"What I have to tell you, sir," began M. Pigot, in a voice as hard as steel and cold as ice, "has, understand well, to be told in confidence. It must remain between ourselves until the criminal is secured."
Grady's smile hardened a little. Perhaps he did not like the imperatives. At any rate, he ignored the hint.
"Understand, Mr. Lester?" he asked, looking at me, and I nodded.
I saw Pigot's eyes flame and his face flush with anger, for Grady's tone was almost insulting. For an instant I thought that he would refuse to proceed; but he controlled himself.
Standing there facing me, in the full light, it was possible for me to examine him much more closely than had been possible on board the boat, and I looked at him with interest. He was typically French, —smooth-shaven, with a face seamed with little wrinkles and very white, eyes shadowed by enormously bushy lashes, and close-cropped hair as white as his face. But what attracted me most was the mouth —a mouth at once delicate and humourous, a little large and with the lips full enough to betoken vigour, yet not too full for fineness. He was about sixty years of age, I guessed; and there was about him the air of a man who had passed through a hundred remarkable experiences, without once losing his aplomb. Certainly he was not going to lose it now.
"The story which I have to relate," he began in his careful English, clipping his words a little now and then, "has to do with the theft of the famous Michaelovitch diamonds. You may, perhaps, remember the case."
I remembered it, certainly, for the robbery had been conceived and carried out with such brilliancy and daring that its details had at once arrested my attention—to say nothing of the fact that the diamonds, which formed the celebrated collection belonging to the Grand Duke Michael, of Russia,—sojourning in Paris because unappreciated in his native land and also because of the supreme attraction of the French capital to one of his temperament—were valued at something like eight million francs.
"That theft," continued M. Pigot, "was accomplished in a manner at once so bold and so unique that we were certain it could be the work of but a single man—a rascal named Crochard, who calls himself also 'The Invincible'—a rascal who has given us very great trouble, but whom we have never been able to convict. In this case, we had against him no direct evidence; we subjected him to an interrogation and found that he had taken care to provide a perfect alibi; so we were compelled to release him. We knew that it would be quite useless to arrest him unless we should find some of the stolen jewels in his possession. He appeared as usual upon the boulevards, at the cafés, everywhere. He laughed in our faces. For us, it was not pleasant; but our law is strict. For us to accuse a man, to arrest him, and then to be compelled to own ourselves mistaken, is a very serious matter. But we did what we could. We kept Crochard under constant surveillance; we searched his rooms and those of his mistress not once but many times. On one occasion, when he passed the barrier at Vincennes, our agents fell upon him and searched him, under pretence of robbing him.