"I did not," said Jimmy, with a great show of importance. "I brought you to talk about something far more interesting. Look here, old man, I don't, of course, know what your feelings may be; but I've got a sort of a notion that—well, to put it in plain words—that you're none too pleased with your prospective father-in-law. He doesn't quite come up to your idea of the man whom you had been told suffered martyrdom for his country's good—eh?"
"I have never said that I disapproved of him," Browne retorted. "I don't know why you should have got this notion into your head."
"You're very loyal, I must say, old man," continued Jimmy; "but that cat won't fight—not for an instant. Any one could see that. No, no; I know as well as if you had told me, that you're as miserable as a man can well be, and so is Miss Petrovitch. I don't wonder at it. I expect I should be as bad if I were likely to be blessed with such a papa. I should be inclined to wish him back again in the wilds of Saghalien."
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, get on with what you've got to say!" cried Browne. "Why do you keep me on the rack like this?"
Jimmy, however, was not to be hurried. He had never had such a hand to play before, and he was determined to make the most of it.
"It was MacAndrew there who made the discovery," he replied. "I only came in at the end, like the Greek Chorus, to explain things. The fact of the matter is, Browne, when our friend here and the little red-haired gentleman were shut up together in the tunnel, the former elicited the information (how he managed it I am not prepared to say) that the name of the ex-convict is not Polowski or Petrovitch, but Kleinkopf; that he is not a Nihilist, as we have been led to believe, but a diamond-thief of the first water."
He paused to hear what Browne would say, and, if the truth must be confessed, he was mortified to find that the other betrayed no sort of surprise.
"I know all that," answered his friend. "Have you discovered nothing else?"
"A heap more," continued Jimmy; "but perhaps you know that, too. Are you aware that the convict is the famous Red Rat, who once defied the united police of Europe? Well, he is! He is also—and, mark you, this is the greatest point of all—he is no less a person than Madame Bernstein's husband!"
"Madame Bernstein's husband?" cried Browne, in stupefied surprise. "What on earth do you mean by that? I warn you not to joke with me. I'm not in the humour for it."