M. Fuselier also dropped into a comfortable chair. He lighted a cigarette.
"You have found out nothing fresh about that mysterious murder of Lord Beltham?"
"Nothing. I'm done. It is an insoluble mystery to me."
"You seem to be very sorry for yourself, but really you needn't be, Juve. You cleared up the Beltham case, and you solved the Langrune case, although you try to make out you didn't. And allow me to inform you, those two successes count, my friend."
"You are very kind, but you are rather misinformed. Unfortunately I have not cleared up the Beltham case at all."
"You found the missing peer."
"Well, yes, but——"
"That was an amazing achievement. By the way, Juve, what led you to go to the rue Lévert to search Gurn's trunks?"
"That was very simple. You remember what an excitement there was when Lord Beltham disappeared? Well, when I was called in I saw at once that all ideas of accident or suicide might be dismissed, and that consequently the disappearance was due to crime. Once convinced of that, I very naturally suspected every single person who had ever had relations with Lord Beltham, for there was no single individual for me to suspect. Then I found out that the ex-Ambassador had been in continuous association with an Englishman named Gurn whom he had known in the South African war, and who led a very queer sort of life. That of course took me to Gurn's place, if for nothing else than to pick up information. And—well, that's all about it. It was just by going to Gurn's place to pump him, rather than anything else, that I found the noble lord's remains locked away in the trunk."
"Your modesty is delightful, Juve," said M. Fuselier with an approving nod. "You present things as if they were all matters of course, whereas really you are proving your extraordinary instinct. If you had arrived only twenty-four hours later the corpse would have been packed off to the Transvaal, and only the Lord knows if after that the extraordinary mystery ever would have been cleared up."