“Then by all means ring him up and ask him to come along,” Blenkiron answered. “But you are mistaken about Michaud’s being at Morley’s, Hopford, because he was one of those arrested this evening at the house with the bronze face.”
“Michaud arrested? Good again! But what was he arrested for?”
“Attempted blackmail—same as the others. But in Michaud’s case there is a second charge. Michaud, the Commissioner tells me, turns out to be a regular importer, on a big scale, of a remarkable drug you have already heard about, which is made and only procurable in Shanghai, Canton, and Hankau. The secret of this drug belongs to one man—a Chinaman.
“Now, sixteen years ago Michaud served a sentence of five years’ imprisonment in a French penitentiary for attempted blackmail; became, on his release, a greater scoundrel than ever, and finally succeeded in becoming naturalized as an Englishman. Then he went out to the East, set up in business in Canton, and eventually scraped acquaintance with a Shanghai wine merchant named Julius Stringborg, who introduced him to Fobart Robertson, Timothy Macmahon, Levi Schomberg, Alix Stothert, Stapleton, and several others, including, of course, Angela Robertson.
“Months passed, and then one day Michaud turned up in London again. None suspected, however, that he was now engaged in secretly importing the strange drug, for which he soon found a ready sale at a colossal profit. Some of the properties of the drug you already know, but it has other properties. Then, after a while he started systematically blackmailing many of his clients, for to be in possession of the drug, without authority, is in England a criminal offense. Not content with that, however, he now decided, in order to be able to extend his operations, to take into his confidence one or two of his friends. Among those friends were Marietta Stringborg and her husband, Angela Robertson and Timothy Macmahon. Those four formed the nucleus of a little gang of criminals which has since increased until——”
The arrival of Preston and Yootha Hagerston, followed almost immediately by Johnson and Cora Hartsilver, put an end to Blenkiron’s narrative. All were now greatly excited, and eager for information concerning the house with the bronze face and what had happened there; so that when Major Guysburg was announced he found himself ushered into a room where everybody seemed to be talking at once.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CONCLUSION.
The two-column article which appeared in only one London morning newspaper created a profound sensation. Quoted in part in the evening newspapers throughout the country, it became the principal topic of conversation in the clubs and in the streets, but in particular in social circles over the whole of the United Kingdom.
That the most important secret information agency in London, an organization which had come to be looked upon as the most enterprising and trustworthy there had ever been in the Metropolis, and which half the peerage, to say nothing of the ordinary aristocracy, had at one time and another consulted in confidence, should suddenly be discovered to be nothing more than the headquarters of a nest of rogues and blackmailers, dealt Society a terrible blow.