"Practically at once. A clergyman on his way here—clothes and passport stolen—left for murdered—chauffeur so like him that the minister noticed the resemblance himself in the instant the man was knocking him down,—what was the inference? Pretty obvious, you'll agree. Well, the first step was simple. The pair had separated; but we got Tiel at Inverness on his way North, and Schumann within twenty-four hours afterwards at Liverpool."
"Good business!" said Phipps. "I hadn't heard about Schumann before."
"Well," continued Blacklock, "I interviewed Mr Tiel, and I found I'd struck just about the worst thing in the way of rascals it has ever been my luck to run up against. He began to bargain at once. If his life was spared he would give me certain very valuable information."
"Mein Gott!" cried Belke. "Did a German actually say that?"
"Tiel belongs to no country," said Blacklock. "He is a cosmopolitan adventurer without patriotism or morals. I told him his skin would be safe if his information really proved valuable; and when I heard his story, I may say that he did save his skin. He gave the whole show away, down to the passwords that were to pass between you when you met."
He suddenly turned to Phipps and smiled.
"It's curious how the idea came to me. I've done a good bit of secret service work myself, and felt in such a funk sometimes that I've realised the temptation to give the show away if I were nailed. Well, as I looked at Tiel, I said to myself, 'There, but for the grace of God, stands Robin Blacklock!' And then suddenly it flashed into my mind that we were really not at all unlike one another—same height, and tin-opener nose, and a few streaks of anno domini in our hair, and so on."
"I know, old thing," said his friend, "it's the wife-poisoning type. You see 'em by the dozen in the Chamber of Horrors."
Their Teutonic captive seemed to wax a little impatient.
"What happened then?" he demanded.