"That idea commended itself to a curio dealer?" Bell suggested, drily.
"But yes," Van Sneck said, eagerly. "Later on we disclose the other and get a second big price. And Lord Littimer he buy the first copy for a long price."
"After which you discreetly disappear," said Steel. "Did you steal those pictures?"
"No," Van Sneck said, indignantly. "They came to me in the way of honest business—a poor workman who knows nothing of their value, and takes fifteen marks for them."
"Honest merchant," David murmured. "Pray go on."
"I had to go away. Some youthful foolishness over some garnets raked up after many years. The police came down upon me so suddenly that I got away with the skin of my teeth. I leave the other Rembrandt, everything, behind me. I do not know that Henson he give me away so that he can steal the other Rembrandt."
"So you have found that out?" said Bell. "Who told you?"
"I learn that not so long ago. I learn it from a scoundrel called Merritt, a tool of Henson. He tells me to go to Littimer Castle to steal the Rembrandt for Henson, because Dr. Bell, he find my Rembrandt. Then I what you call pump Merritt, and he tells me all about the supposed robbery at Amsterdam and what was found in the portmanteau of good Dr. Bell yonder. Then I go to Henson and tell him what I find out, and he laughs. Mind you, that was after I came here from Paris on business for Henson."
"About the time you bought that diamond-mounted cigar-case?" David asked, quietly.
Van Sneck nodded. He was evidently impressed by the knowledge possessed by his questioners.