"The Benoy affair in March last was a sensational one—the murder of the jeweller while in his motor-car in the Forest of Fontainebleau—you remember," I remarked presently in French, leaning back in my chair and puffing at my cigarette. "You made no arrest, did you?"
"Yes, several. But we didn't get the culprits," he replied with a dry smile. "It was our friend Jules Jeanjean again, without a doubt. But he and his accomplices got clean away in the stolen car. It was found two days later a mile out of Maçon, painted grey, and bearing another number. The bandits evidently took train."
"Where to?"
"Who knows? Back to Paris, perhaps," was his reply, flicking the ash from his cigarette. "Yet, though we made a close search, we found no trace whatever of the interesting Jules. Sapristí! I only wish I could lay hands upon him. He is undoubtedly the most daring and dangerous criminal in the whole of Europe," Jonet went on. "Of late we have had reports of his doings from Germany and Russia, but he always escapes. A big jewel robbery in Petersburg is his latest clever exploit. Yet how he disposes of his booty always puzzles me. He must get rid of it somewhere, and yet we never find any trace of it."
I said nothing. From his words I saw how utterly ignorant even Jonet was of the truth, and how little he suspected the actual fact that Jeanjean was not the originator of those ingenious crimes but merely the instrument of another and a master-brain.
The great police official drew a long sigh, and expressed wonder as to whether the elusive jewel-thief and assassin would ever fall into the hands of justice.
"At present he seems to bear quite a charmed life," he declared with a smile. "He openly defies us each time—sometimes even going the length of writing us an insulting letter, denouncing us as incompetent and heaping ridicule upon the whole department of the Sûreté. It is that which makes my officers so intensely keen to capture him."
"I fear you will never do so," I remarked.
"Why?"