Boldness was one of Rudolph Rayne’s characteristics. He was fearless in all his clever and ingenious conspiracies, though his cunning was unequaled.
As I drove down to Folkestone I ruminated, as I so often did. No doubt some devilish plot was underlying the acceptance of the high police official’s invitation to the staff dinner.
Its nature became revealed a few days later when, on opening my newspaper one morning, being still at Folkestone waiting in patience, I read a paragraph which aroused within me considerable interest.
It was to the effect that Superintendent Arthur Benton, the well-known Scotland Yard officer, had, after the annual dinner a few nights before, been suddenly taken ill on his way home to Hampstead, and was at the moment lying in a very critical condition suffering from some mysterious form of ptomaine poisoning, his life being despaired of.
I was quite unaware until long afterwards of the deeply laid attempt upon Benton’s life, how the mysterious Dutchman was really a waiter much wanted by the French police for a poisoning affair in Marseilles, and that he had been able, by means best known to Rayne, to obtain temporary employment at the Elgin Rooms on the night of the banquet. It was he who had served the table at which had sat the unsuspicious detective superintendent.
The latter fortunately did not succumb, but he was incapacitated from duty for over twelve months, during which period the inquiries regarding the unknown head of the criminal band were dropped, much to the relief of Rayne and Duperré.
All this, however, was, I saw, preliminary and in preparation for some great coup.
I suppose I had been kicking my heels about Folkestone for perhaps ten days when, without warning, Rayne and Lola arrived with Tracy and a quantity of luggage. No doubt the mysterious Dutchman had returned to the Continent by the fishing-boat in which he had come over to act at Rayne’s orders.
“We are going to the Continent by the morning service the day after to-morrow, George,” Rayne told me. “Tracy leaves to-night. Lola will go with us as far as Paris, where Duperré will meet us, and we go south together.”