Next night, Garrett spent alone in Carlisle, and on the following morning started direct for London, being compelled, owing to the abominable state of the roads, to take two days over the run.
A week of suspense went by, when one evening he received a note from his Highness, in consequence of which he went to Dover Street, where he found him smoking one of his “Petroffs,” as was his wont.
“Well, Garrett?” he laughed. “Sit down, and have a drink. I’ve got eight hundred pounds for you here—your share of the boodle?”
“But I don’t understand,” he exclaimed. “What boodle?”
“Of course you don’t understand!” he laughed. “Just carry your mind back. You told me the story of little Elfrida’s unfortunate secret marriage, and that her husband had a red ring tattooed around his left wrist. That conveyed nothing to you; but it told me much. That afternoon I was walking with the ladies up Glenblair village when, to my surprise, I saw standing at a door no less a person than Jacques Fourrier, or ‘Le Bravache,’ as he’s known in Paris, an ‘international,’ like ourselves.”
“Le Bravache!” gasped Garrett, for his reputation was that of the most daring and successful adventurer on the Continent, besides which he knew him as his Highness’s arch-enemy owing to a little love affair of a couple of years before.
“Yes. ‘Le Bravache’!” the Prince went on. “He recognised me, and I saw that our game was up. Then you told me Elfrida’s story, and from the red circle on the man’s arm I realised that Paul Berton, the engineer, and ‘Le Bravache’ were one and the same person! Besides, she had actually given you to take to her husband the very thing we had gone to Glenblair to obtain!”
“What was it?” he asked excitedly.
“Well, the facts are these,” answered the audacious, good-looking Prince, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips. “Old Blair-Stewart has taken, in secret, a contract from the German Government to build a number of submarine boats for naval use. The plans of these wonderful vessels are kept in a strong safe in the old chap’s private office in Dumbarton, and both Fourrier and ourselves were after them—the French Intelligence Department having, in confidence, offered a big sum to any one bringing them to the Quay d’Orsay. Now you see the drift of the story of the exemplary Paul to his pretty little wife, and why he induced her to take impressions in wax of her father’s safe-key, she believing that he merely wanted sight of the plans in order to ascertain whether they were any better than his own alleged invention. Fortunately for us, she induced you to be her messenger. When we sent you up there with orders to be nice to Elfrida we never anticipated such a contretemps as Fourrier’s presence, or that the dainty little girl would actually take the impressions for us to use.”
“Then you have used it?”