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.
Four days later it was handed to me, a photograph taken in several positions of the rather round-faced, florid man whom I had seen talking to Mademoiselle at the station at Montauban—the man whom Rivero had followed, but who, on the French police going to arrest him, was found to have fled.
I carried the photograph to Folcker’s lodgings and there showed it to him.
“That is the man who met my master, sir!” he cried unhesitatingly. “Only he wore round horn spectacles. His face and moustache are the same. He was not Dutch.”
“No. This man is a Spaniard named Sanz, who is well known to the police,” I replied.
“Then they should arrest him, for he is no doubt responsible for my poor master’s death.”
We went together to the Bureau of Police where the valet formally identified the photograph, and made certain declarations concerning the malefactor in question. These he signed.
“I happen to have seen this individual,” I explained to the police commissary. “I was with Señor Rivero, head of the Spanish detective department, and we saw him at Montauban. But though Señor Rivero followed him, he escaped.”
“Then he is wanted—eh?”
“Yes—for murder.”
The Dutch police official gave vent to a low grunt.
“Very well,” he said. “I will have inquiry made. I thank you very much for the information.”
It seemed to me that he was annoyed because I had dared to dispute his theory that the late Baron had died from natural causes. He was a stolid man, who, having once made up his mind, would not hear any evidence to the contrary.
With failing heart I saw that to move him was hopeless, so next day I returned to London, piqued and angry, yet satisfied that I had discovered the true cause of the Baron’s lamentable death.
Weeks passed. To pursue the inquiry further seemed quite hopeless. The summer went by, but Mrs. Tennison and her daughter still remained in Lyons. The reports were never hopeful. My poor darling was just the same. There recurred to her ever and anon a remembrance of those three colours which haunted her—red, green and gold.
The Professor was most kind, Gabrielle’s mother wrote me. He did everything in his power, and still persevered after failure upon failure.
“I fear poor Gabrielle will never recover,” she wrote in one of her letters. “The Professor is always optimistic, but I can read that in his heart he has no hope. The next step will, I dread to think, be hopeless imbecility!”
With that letter in my pocket I went to the office in Westminster each day with leaden heart. The joys of life had become blotted out. I cared for nothing, for no one, and my interest in living further had been suddenly swept away.
Harry Hambledon, as we sat together at breakfast each day, tried in vain to interest me in various ways. He urged me one evening to go with him and Norah to the Palais de Danse, across Hammersmith Bridge, and I was forced to accept. But instead of dancing I sat at a side table and sipped ice drinks. Dancing had no attraction for me.