“Engström and Linner, Stockholm. Oscar Engström.
“Now, Mr Sant,” he went on, “the Mr Engström who helped me was not the man we both know as Engström! He did not resemble him in the slightest degree. I immediately tried to find Mr Engström, but found to my dismay that he had left the Hotel Cecil and no one knew where he had gone. He was on a holiday tour, and when he tears a few days from business he frequently disappears altogether for a week, in order to get a complete rest from business cares. I have wired Malmö, and all they can tell me is that he will not be back for ten days. Now what can we do?”
I thought deeply for a few moments. Obviously I must see the real Mr Engström as soon as possible. But there was no chance of finding him immediately, and in the meantime much might happen. I soon made up my mind.
“I shall return to Lucerne at once,” I said, “and go from there to Stockholm in time to meet Mr Engström on his arrival. There is nothing else to be done.”
Two days later I was back in Lucerne. “Engström,” his friend Thornton, and Madame Bohman were still there, busy on their plot, whatever it was, and entirely unsuspicious either of the urbane hotel manager or the pretty little Frenchwoman who had apparently developed a lively affection for the handsome Swedish woman.
One day I learned from Luigi that, in the course of a couple of hours, Engström had received three telegrams, and had sent a reply to each of them. Of their purport Luigi could gain no knowledge.
Now, I was particularly anxious to get a sight of those telegrams, for obviously they might throw a good deal of light on the business on which Engström was engaged. I laid my plans accordingly.
That same afternoon, with Luigi’s assistance, I managed to transform myself into a passable imitation of a very unkempt and dirty mechanic, and as soon as the Swedish engineer left the hotel, about half-past five—it was his usual habit to go out to take an apéritif—I took Luigi’s master-key, which unlocked all the doors in the hotel, and crept noiselessly to Engström’s room. I was soon inside, and a few minutes later, with the aid of my own skeleton keys, had opened the big leather travelling trunk, and was hastily examining its contents.
A number of telegrams had been hastily thrust into the trunk. I had grasped my prize and was just about to shut and relock the trunk, when I heard a sound behind me, and, turning, found myself face to face with Oscar Engström himself.
And not only that, but I was looking straight into the barrel of a very serviceable-looking automatic pistol, held without a tremor in Engström’s very capable hands!