‘Good Lord, don’t you know?’ he demanded. ‘And little George a Scotland Yard expert, too. Jesse Gideon calls himself a solicitor. As a matter of fact he’s rather a clever fence. And the Hun is no one else but Eberhard von Faber himself.’
Prenderby still looked blank, but Abbershaw started.
‘The “Trois Pays” man?’ he said quickly.
‘And “Der Schwarzbund”. And “The Chicago Junker”, and now our own little “0072” at the Yard,’ said Mr Campion, and there was no facetiousness in his tone.
‘This means nothing to me,’ said Prenderby.
Mr Campion opened his mouth to speak, but Abbershaw was before him.
‘It means, Michael,’ he said, with an inflection in his voice which betrayed the gravity in which he viewed the situation, ‘that this man controls organized gangs of crooks all over Europe and America, and he has the reputation of being utterly ruthless and diabolically clever. It means we are up against the most dangerous and notorious criminal of modern times.’
CHAPTER XII
‘Furthermore . . .’ said Mr Campion
After the little silence that followed Abbershaw’s announcement, Prenderby spoke.
‘What’s in this mysterious package they’ve lost?’ he said.