Strong made for the outer hall, intending to escape from the hotel; but delay at the front door, which he found locked, enabled Jack to run him to earth.
Strong fished out a revolver and pointed it at Jack's head, but Jack luckily dashed it aside, and it fell upon the marble floor of the entrance hall, exploding as it did so, with a startlingly loud report, which effectually roused those few people sleeping in the hotel whose slumbers had survived the upsetting of my jug and basin.
Then Jack, recognising Strong at last, fell upon the scoundrel and administered the grandest possible thrashing and kicking that you can imagine. That thrashing of Strong, Jack always says, did him a heap of good, and made a new and self-respecting man of him again; for he had lost of late some of his self-respect by reason of Strong's indisputable cleverness in Copenhagen and Bremen, where he had scored heavily against us.
When, however, he had "scarcely begun," as he says, the process of kicking and punching the wretched man, the performance was interrupted by an inrush of frightened people, who had heard a pistol-shot and were rushing downstairs to see what was the matter.
So that there was no difficulty about securing Strong; and that arch scoundrel was presently led upstairs to my room, bound tightly at the wrists, in order that I might testify to his identity as set forth by Jack.
Well, there was little doubt about that, and as little trouble in getting the midnight burglar transferred from the hotel to the police cell. He had been caught red-handed. My money and my letter-case, with my own cards in one of the pockets, were found in his possession, two hundred pounds in notes, the bulk of Clutterbuck's cheque had of course been deposited by me in the bank. It was as clear a case of burglary as ever delighted policeman's ears, and the constable, summoned to remove Strong, looked as pleased as one who has come, unexpectedly, into a good thing.
We found that Strong had—under an assumed name, of course—actually slept for three nights within a room or two of us! He had taken care to remain invisible at all such times as we spent within the hotel, however; but had kept a watch upon our actions, and had even—as he declared—watched me find the treasure,—peeping over the wall at a spot where his face was well hidden by the branch of a spreading tree. He probably concluded that I should have the entire proceeds of the cheque with me in the hotel. It was just as well that I took the precaution to bank the money, however; for had he found it, he would have got clear away without awaking me. As it was, he deliberately awoke me in order to compel me, by the torture of suffocation, to point out where I had hidden my property.
There is not much more to tell. The magistrate committed our rascal for trial at the Croydon sessions, and in due time he was sentenced by the court to a term of hard labour. Jack and I consulted earnestly as to whether we ought to reveal the miscreant's criminal acts in Bechuana and in Narva; but we decided that it would be useless to attempt to prove the major offence of murder; we were without evidence of any kind; and, after all, so long as the fellow was safe within stone walls and under many locks and keys at Millbank or Portland or at Dartmoor, or wherever it might be, it would be out of his power to commit further mischief.
Did he intend to murder me in the hotel, I wonder? Jack says he thinks not; but then Jack did not feel the torture of that gag, and the horror of imminent suffocation as I did; and I am certain that, whether Strong intended it or not, I should have died then and there, if my good friend had not rushed in and released me in the nick of time.
I suppose there are not many, even among the convicts in Dartmoor, so utterly evil and cruel in disposition as this man James Strong, and I am glad that I may here take leave of him—in these pages at least—for good and all. I daresay the reader is as glad to be rid of him as I am. I humbly hope and pray that I may never meet him again in this world.