"Because Jeanjean is too clever to be caught. He is wary, rich, and takes every precaution against surprise."
"You know him—eh?"
"Yes," I admitted. "But what is the latest information you have regarding him?"
Jonet took up the telephone and gave instructions for the dossier of the great criminal to be brought to him.
In a few moments a clerk entered bearing three formidable portfolios full of reports, photographs, lists of stolen jewellery, and other matters concerning the career of the man who had constantly baffled all attempts to capture him.
Jonet opened one of the portfolios and scanned several sheets of closely-written reports. Then he said—
"It seems that he, with a young girl, said to be a niece of his, were in Russia just prior to the great robbery from a jeweller in Petersburg. No doubt they were implicated in it. The girl, travelling alone, passed the frontier at Wirballen on the following day, but the telegram from the Petersburg police arrived at the frontier too late, and in Germany she disappeared."
"And what about Jeanjean?" I asked.
The famous Chief Inspector read on for a few moments. Then he replied—
"He was seen on the day of the theft, together with an Italian, believed to be one of his accomplices, but after that nothing further was heard of him until four days later. Then an inspector at Lille recognized him from his circulated photograph, but not being quite certain, and also knowing that, if the suspect were actually the man wanted, he would be armed, and recollecting the affair at Charleroi, he did not care to make a pounce single-handed. He went back to the police-station, but while he was looking for the photograph, his man, evidently seeing he was suspected, made his escape."