“Exactly. There was a hitch in disposing of them in Amsterdam, as had been intended, and though the diamonds had been knocked from their settings, I found them intact.”
He told me that Forbes was the actual thief, who had so daringly travelled to Finsbury Park and collected the tickets en route. He had practically confessed to having thrown the bag out to Reckitt and Pennington, who were waiting at a point eight miles north of Peterborough. They had used an electric flash-lamp as they stood in the darkness near the line, and the thief, on the look-out for the light, tossed the bag out on to the embankment.
“Then my father-in-law is a thief!” I remarked, with chagrin, when the sergeant and constable had been dismissed. “It was for that reason my wife dare not face me and make explanation!”
“You apparently believe Arnold Du Cane, alias Winton, alias Pennington, to be Sylvia’s father—but such is not the case,” remarked the great detective slowly. “To his career attaches a very remarkable story—one which, in my long experience in the unravelling of mysteries of crime, has never been equalled.”
“Tell me it,” I implored him eagerly. “Where is my poor wife?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE FRENCHMAN MAKES A STATEMENT
“Ah! I regret, m’sieur, that I do not know,” replied the Frenchman. “And yet,” he added, after a second’s hesitation, “I do not exactly regret. Perhaps it is best, after all, that I should remain in ignorance. But, Monsieur Biddulph, I would make one request on your wife’s behalf.”