“On suspicion of being associated with the theft of the diamonds of the Archduchess Marie Louise,” I replied.
“Come, monsieur,” laughed my visitor, speaking again in English, “I think we have carried this sufficiently far.” And, placing his hand in his breast-pocket, he produced a small folded yellow card bearing his photograph, which he handed to me. “Read that!” he added, with a laugh of triumph.
I saw that the printed card was headed “Préfecture de Police, Ville de Paris,” and that it was signed, countersigned, and bore a large red official seal.
Quickly I scanned it, and, to my abject dismay, realized that Henri Guertin was chief of the first section of the sûreté—he was one of the greatest detectives of France!
I stammered something, and then, turning to the sergeant, red and ashamed, I admitted that I had made a mistake in attempting to arrest so distinguished an official.
The two metropolitan officers held the card in their hands, and, unable to read French, asked me to translate it for them, which I did.
“Why,” cried the sergeant, “Monsieur Guertin is well known! His name figures in the papers only this morning as arresting two Englishmen in Paris for a mysterious murder alleged to have been committed in some house in Bayswater!”
“In Bayswater!” I gasped. “In Porchester Terrace?”
“Yes,” replied the famous French detective. “It is true that I know Reckitt and Forbes. But I only knew them in order to get at the truth. They never suspected me, and early yesterday morning I went to the snug little apartments they have in the Rue de Rouen, and arrested them, together with two young Frenchmen named Terassier and Brault. Concealed beneath a loose board in the bedroom of the last-named man I found the missing gems.”
“Then Terassier and Brault were the two men who met the others in Stamford, and carried the diamonds across to the Continent, intending to dispose of them?”