The Baron de Grost smiled.
"Really," he said, "you have only to think for yourself for a moment, my dear Bernadine, and you will understand. In the first place, the letter you sent me signed 'Greening' was clearly a forgery. There was no one else anxious to get me into their power, hence I associated it at once with you. Naturally, I telephoned to the chief of my staff—I, too, am obliged to employ some of these un-uniformed policemen, my dear Bernadine, as you may be aware. It may interest you to know, further, that there are seven entrances to the warehouse in Tooley Street. Through one of these something like twenty of my men passed and were already concealed in the place when I entered. At another of the doors a motor-car waited for me. If I had chosen to lift my finger at any time, your men would have been overpowered, and I might have had the pleasure of dictating terms to you in my own office. Such a course did not appeal to me. You and I, as you know, dear Count von Hern, conduct our peculiar business under very delicate conditions, and the least thing we either of us desire is notoriety. I managed things, as I thought, for the best. The moment you left the place my men swarmed in. We gently but firmly ejected your guard, released Greening and my clerk, and I passed you myself in Fleet Street, a little more comfortable, I think, in my forty horsepower motor-car than you in that very disreputable hansom. The other details are too absurdly simple; one need not enlarge upon them."
Bernadine shrugged his shoulders.
"I am at your service," he declared calmly.
De Grost laughed.
"My dear fellow," he said, "need I say that you are free to come or go, to take a whisky and soda with me or to depart at once—exactly as you feel inclined? The door was locked only until you restored to me my keys."
He crossed the room, fitted the key in the lock and turned it.
Bernadine drew himself up.
"I will not drink with you," he said. "But some day a reckoning shall come."
He turned to the door. De Grost laid his finger upon the bell.