"It is your business, not mine, to explain," interrupted the listener. "Tell all you know."
"At the spring on the little island the seamen filled their water-butts; this kept them several days, mixing labor with skylarking, during which time one of them picked up something, a pouch marked with a name."
"Which was--?"
Mr. Gillett leaned forward, spoke softly; Lord Ronsdale stared straight ahead. "Of course," he said, "of course!"
"This, I will confess, startled, puzzled me," continued the police agent after a pause. "What did it mean? I tried to explain it in a dozen different ways but none of them seemed exactly to fit. Then it was that the line of special investigation helped. John Steele's outing to which you directed my attention was passed on the continent. What did he do there; was it business; was it pleasure took him there? After a good deal of pains, we discovered that he visited a certain large building, centrally located. This proved a starting-point; why did he go there? At the top was a studio; from the concierge we learned that he had asked for the artist. From the artist we ascertained that John Steele had bought a picture; that he had called several times to watch the painter at his work. So far, so good, or bad! For was it likely John Steele had come to Paris to buy a bit of canvas, or was his interest in art assumed to cover his real purpose? When he left the studio, did he, without the knowledge of the concierge, call on some one else in the building?
"This thought led to an inspection of the tenants. They proved of all sorts and kinds; the place was a beehive; hundreds of people entered and left every day. At this time I happened on an item in a periodical about some remarkable work in a certain line by a high-class medical specialist. Here is the paragraph."
Lord Ronsdale took the slip of paper the other handed him and briefly looked at it. "You visited this person?"
"Yes, as his office address was mentioned as being in the large building we were interested in. But at the moment I had no suspicion that John Steele's pilgrimage to Paris could have been for the purpose of consulting,--"
"An eminent specialist in the line of removing birth-marks," glancing at the slip of paper, "or other disfigurements--"
"Such as I described to your lordship from the book that day in the office," murmured the police agent.