It was at dinner, on the night of his arrival, that Forrest first hinted that he had picked up some details of Mannering's life-history, and of course nothing would content Evie but a promise that we should hear what he had discovered. So, directly the meal was finished, we adjourned for our coffee and cigars to my sanctum, where, in front of a comfortable fire, Forrest made no difficulty about satisfying our curiosity.
"You see," he began, when his cigar was once well alight, "I was every bit as curious as Mrs. Sutgrove."
"Or myself," I interrupted.
"Or Mr. Sutgrove," said the detective, smiling, "for there is precious little difference between the sexes so far as curiosity is concerned, in spite of the generally accepted opinion on the matter. But being curious, I naturally made the most minute search when I searched his place at St. Alban's. I didn't find much there, it is true, but I did secure a clue which ultimately led me to some lodgings which he had occupied some three or four years previously, and there, by the merest good luck, I discovered that when he had departed he had left behind him a worn-out travelling-bag, and in that bag was a bundle of papers which supplied me with sufficient information to reconstruct his history to some extent, though I should not like to swear to the absolute accuracy of every detail of his biography as I see it."
"Was there nothing at all found at St. Alban's then?" asked Evie.
"I fancy you must have seen in the papers a pretty full account of all that the police discovered there?" said the detective.
"Yes," replied Evie. "We read a lot of stories, but they varied to such an extent that we really did not know what to believe."
Forrest smiled. "Now I come to think of it, the reporters did give their imaginations free reins, but you can take it from me that, with the exception of the plunder he amassed after his return from that Continental trip, and the apparatus for the production of the liquid hydrogen, there was very little in his house of interest to me or you. There was his bank-book, and some correspondence with a learned professor at the Royal Institution. I followed up both clues. At the R. I. I discovered nothing. Mannering had merely posed as a wealthy amateur in chemistry, and of course he met with every assistance when he had asked for help in following up his researches into the behaviour of liquid gases. At his bank also, very little was known about him. When he had come to St. Alban's he had opened an account by a payment into it of six or seven thousand pounds in Bank of England notes. He had drawn steadily upon the account until it was nearly exhausted, and, in point of fact, there was only a few pounds to his credit from the time when he commenced his career on the road, until a week or two after his return from Amsterdam, when he paid in two thousand pounds in gold, and a fortnight later swelled his balance with a similar amount."
"That was the proceeds of the Brighton mail robbery," I remarked.
Forrest nodded. "That was his only really big coup. As for his other plunder, he probably disposed of the proceeds of all his early cruises on the Continent, at the same time that he sold the diamonds. That which he obtained afterwards was found intact in the safe in his bedroom. Heavens! What an opportunity I missed by not taking out a search-warrant for his house. When we paid our midnight visit, there must have been ample evidence behind the steel door to have convicted him."