“It shall be done, gentlemen,” the stolid official assured us. “It shall be done in secret—and at once.”
He was true to his word, for at noon next day I received an invitation to call again at the Police Bureau, and was there informed that a small superficial cut upon the first finger of the left hand had been discovered.
Therefore there was no doubt that death had resulted from foul play.
If such were the case, it seemed more than probable that to Count de Chamartin, the intimate associate of Oswald De Gex, a similar dose of orosin had been administered!
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH
MORE ABOUT MATEO SANZ
The means by which the unfortunate Baron van Veltrup had met with his death was as ingenious as that practised upon me by the expert thief, Despujol. As I reflected upon all the details as related to me by the valet, Folcker, I suddenly recollected that the Baron’s strange visitor, the man who must have placed that sharp scrap of razor-blade within his glove at the moment when the unsuspicious victim had gone outside to speak with his servant, was described as a man with a red face and a dark moustache.
A man who answered such description was the elusive friend of Mademoiselle Jacquelot, of Montauban, the motor bandit Mateo Sanz—the man who had so cleverly evaded the police, and who had no doubt been an intimate friend of Despujol! In order to confirm my suspicions, I at once telegraphed to Señor Rivero in Madrid, urging him to send me a copy of the police photograph of Sanz for identification purposes. That same day I received a reply which informed me that the photograph was in the post, hence I remained in Amsterdam awaiting its arrival.