“Yes. But the truth was stranger than I had ever imagined. As you know, things do not surprise me very often, but in this affair I confess I’d been taken completely aback.”
“How?”
“Because when I returned to Monty I made some absolutely surprising discoveries. Among them was that Mademoiselle was in the habit of secretly meeting a long-nosed man.”
“A long-nosed man!” I exclaimed. “You mean the police-agent?”
“I mean Monsieur Martin, the clerk. Don’t you recognise him?” he asked, taking the photograph out of his pocket and handing it to me.
It was the same!
“To be away from Martin’s influence, my dear Ewart, the good jeweller Dumont had arranged for Mademoiselle to go into the convent. The father had, no doubt, discovered his daughter’s secret love affair. Martin knew this, and with the connivance of Pierrette and Madame had decamped with the gems from the Charing Cross Hotel, in order to feather his nest.”
“And the missing Dumont?”
“Dumont, when he realised his enormous loss, saw that if he complained to the police it would get into the papers, and his creditors—who had lately been very pressing—would lose confidence in the stability of the business in the Rue de la Paix. So he resolved to disappear, get away to Norway, and, if possible, follow Martin and regain possession of the jewels. In this he very nearly succeeded, but fortunately for us, Martin was no fool.”