“I have taken precautions,” replied Monsieur Coulagne, smiling. “I have ordered ten men in plain clothes to go at once unobtrusively to the Hôtel du Luxembourg, and arrest him when he returns.”
“That will frighten De Gex and Moroni,” I said quickly. “And if they are frightened they will escape!”
Rivero laughed. I knew that he entirely disbelieved my statement. In his eyes the wealthy friend of Spain could do no wrong. Did not his King invite him to conference, in ignorance, of course, of his true character?
I was not surprised at Rivero’s attitude, yet I had hoped that Despujol’s arrest would be effected without the knowledge of De Gex and his sinister medical friend.
I pointed this out, whereupon Rivero remarked with sarcasm:
“If what you allege against Señor De Gex and his friend be true, they ought also to be arrested.”
“Yes. They ought, and they will be when I am able to bring forward sufficient evidence to convict them,” I replied warmly. “Why, I ask you, should Oswald De Gex be in secret association with that dangerous bandit?”
The Spaniard merely shrugged his shoulders, while at the Commissary’s request a dossier was brought in, and then they both went through a long catalogue of crimes alleged to have been instigated or actually committed by the man whom I had found in my bedroom, and who had so cleverly deceived me.
The list was a formidable one, and showed how elusive was the man whom the police of Europe had been hunting for so long.