"And who are you?" said De Alcantara, with another useless oath.
"You know me very well. I could have arrested you upstairs, but I am good-natured. I have the governor's warrant to deliver you to this gentleman, who arrived from London this morning. He represents the chief of police there. You are to answer in London for receiving Lady Eustace's diamonds. We have been waiting for you since Tuesday, but this gentleman only arrived this morning."
De Alcantara turned speechless upon the other, who, with the well-trained civility of an officer of high rank in the English police, hardly smiled. But the two recognized each other at a glance. De Alcantara had known the other long before. And even he felt that rage and oaths were useless.
"No," he said, as the other offered handcuffs; "parole d'honneur." But the handcuffs were put on. And the officers declined his civil offer of his own coupé.
On the registry of St. Jude's Church there is one certificate which lacks the signature of the bridegroom and the bride.
In the state-prison at Amsterdam, prisoner No. 57, in Corridor D, is sentenced to hard labor for fourteen years. He is the Duke de Alcantara, without his mustache, and with very little of the rest of his hair. The London authorities gave him up to the Dutch, when they found that these last had the heaviest charges against him.
De Alcantara had known that the United States had no extradition treaty with Holland, but he had not rightly judged the ingenuity of the Dutch police.
Whoever else was at this wedding, old Bryan was not there, nor was Mrs. Goole. But thanks to the enterprise of the evening press of St. Louis, old Bryan learned, before five o'clock, where his son-in-law that was to be was spending his honeymoon. So did Mrs. Goole.
She waited on her brother to ask where she should go next. He bade her go home, and never let him see her face again. Nor did she, so far as I know.
For him, the poor "old" man—one can but pity him—took a return ticket to Blunt Axe, which is the station nearest to the bridge. There must be some watchman at the bridge, and perhaps he would know something. At the Central Station the obsequious Pullman's porter met him.