"So I learned. You see, I followed you here. But how do you know I went to Coblenz?"
"On the seventh of October?"
"On the seventh of October. How did you know it?"
"I didn't know it. The information just drifted my way."
"You are a detective then, Sherlock Holmes and M. Gaboriau rolled into one."
"Janet, disabuse yourself of that idea. If I were a detective I'd be a very sorry one. Let me prove it to you. In the course of my duties (whatever they are), I had occasion to look up Mr. Burley. I located him in Brussels on the sixth of October. I had scarcely found him before he slipped through my fingers."
"Slipped through your fingers?"
"Yes. Slipped through my fingers. You see, I'm trying to live up to the detective role to oblige you. Well, I got on to Mr. Burley's movements again on the seventh of October, just in time to follow him to Coblenz. Why Coblenz? I asked myself again and again. By the way, did you ever hear of a real, live detective asking himself a question?"
"No. But what is the answer?"
"You are the answer, of course. And I've only just discovered the fact. Fancy Sherlock Holmes following Hutchins Burley all the way from Brussels to Coblenz and from Coblenz to London and not discovering a quintessential answer, until the answer had crossed the Channel and stationed itself under his very nose."