if ever a monosyllable conveyed a warning, that one did.
“Prince Charles of Suess,” the detective continued, “came to your house as a professed stranger to your wife, yet she had an interview with him in her boudoir that night, and when she was disturbed, the young man—disappeared. It was quite possible that he passed into your wife’s bedroom. He may even have been there when the shot was fired which killed the Comte de Besset.”
“Go on,” Andrew invited, with deceitful calm. Mr. Felix Main gained courage.
“This man, De Suess, the Russian,” he confided, “is an impostor. He is a professional dancer at the Legation Club. He lives with a disreputable family of Russians in Milden Square. Your wife has visited him there.”
“Are you getting anywhere towards the end of your interesting disclosures?” Andrew enquired.
“To the end of my disclosures, yes,” was the unsuspecting reply; “to the conclusions which may be derived from the information I have given you, no. To begin with—”
Mr. Felix Main was never quite certain how the rest happened. He felt something like a band of iron round his neck and a grip upon the nether part of his clothing which nothing in the world could have moved. Without hurry or signs of visible anger, he was carried squealing to the hall.
“Open the front door,” Andrew ordered one of the footmen on duty. “Faugh! Why do I soil my hands upon this little brute! John, kick him out on to the pavement. If ever he shows his face near the place again, give him a hiding, or send for the police.”
Mr. Felix Main picked himself up from the gutter. There were not many people, as it happened, to see his precipitate exit from the house in Curzon Street, but the few who were there thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. A taxicab driver, scenting a fare, drew up to the kerbstone, and the aggrieved man stepped in.
“To the nearest police station,” he gasped.
The chauffeur expostulated.
“I shouldn’t if I were you, sir,” he advised. “That was Number eleven you came out of, wasn’t it? Every one knows his lordship. You won’t get anything out of a quarrel with him. Calm down a bit, sir, and give us another address. The pubs ain’t open yet, but get a drop of something at your own house and think things over.”
Mr. Felix Main was already beginning to think things over.
“Drive me,” he directed, “to number nineteen Lincoln’s Inn, the offices of Sir Richard Cotton.”
“Going to have the law on him, are you?” the taxicab man meditated. “Well, perhaps you’re right. You knows your own business, I suppose. Anyway, if you change your mind before you get there, just let me know.”
And then, curiously enough, this investigator into other people’s business did change his mind. From a pecuniary point of view, there was certainly nothing to be made out of Sir Richard Cotton. The very suggestion of the thing was dangerous. He again redirected the man and was driven to Milden Square. Now, for the first time, fortune began to favour him. Issuing from the house, clad with the utmost care and smoking a cigarette, was Charles. The detective accosted him.
“May I ask,” he enquired, “if you are Prince Charles of Suess?”
The young man looked him up and down.
“Supposing I am,” he rejoined, “what do you want with me?”
“I have business of some importance,” Mr. Felix Main announced.
“I don’t know you. What is your name?” was the suspicious query.
“My name is Felix Main. I am a detective and I have been interesting myself in the Glenlitten burglary case.”
“The Glenlitten burglary,” Charles repeated feebly. “I—I—but what has that to do with me?”
The detective avoided a direct reply.
“I was first commissioned,” he confided, “to make certain enquiries concerning the case by no less a person than the Marquis of Glenlitten himself. Either he is a bigger fool than he seems, or it may be that I am a little cleverer than he imagined. Anyhow, I found out all that he wanted to know—and a little more. Yes, quite a little more!”
“What does it matter to me what you found out?” the young man demanded harshly.
“Later on,” the detective begged. “Let me finish. The Marquis of Glenlitten has dismissed me from the case, but it is too late. I have found out too much. I thought of going to Sir Richard Cotton. I changed my mind. I came instead to you.”
Charles was conscious of a sudden giddiness. He held on to the railings for a moment. Then he pointed to the taxicab.
“We can scarcely talk out in the street here,” he said. “I was on my way to the Milan Hotel. If you will drive there with me, you can tell me what you want to know.”
Mr. Felix Main reentered the taxicab, and the young man seated himself by his side.
“You may as well begin by telling me why you think your investigations would interest me. It is true I was in the house that night, but I was a complete stranger and brought over by some friends from the barracks. I have never been there before nor have I been there since.”
“Quite in accord with my information,” the detective murmured. “In fact, I think that I have been very fortunate. There have been several people down there making enquiries—Mr. Ames of Scotland Yard, who has quite a reputation, for one.”
“But why,” Charles demanded, “do you come to me?”
“Because,” his companion rejoined, “I am the one man who has found out the truth about the Glenlitten case.”
Charles pitched his cigarette out of the window. It might have appeared that he disliked the flavour of the tobacco, but the fact was his hand shook so that he could not hold it.
“The truth about the Glenlitten case?” he repeated in an undertone.
Felix Main watched him and was satisfied.
“The Marquis of Glenlitten employed me,” he explained, “because he was convinced, like the rest of the world, that De Besset was shot by the burglar, and he objected to investigations being made into the movements of his other guests that night. I speedily discovered, however, that it was Lord Glenlitten who was wrong and Sir Richard who was on the right tack.”
“I am very much interested,” Charles confessed, “yet it seems strange to me that I should be your confidant.”
“You will understand presently,” Felix Main assured him. “You were one of the guests there that night. You were one of the three men absent from the festivities for some time. The other two were the Comte de Besset and a Mr. Rodney Haslam.”
“Who is that fellow Haslam?” Charles asked eagerly. “I did not like him. He never took his eyes off Lady Glenlitten. I think that he was no friend of De Besset’s. Did you find out anything about him?”
Felix Main made no remark for several minutes. He leaned out of the window and directed the taxicab to his own office.
“We can talk more comfortably there,” he observed to his companion. “It is very important, of course, to discover the murderer of the Comte de Besset—a great feather in one’s cap to steal a march on these Scotland Yard men—but there is another very interesting matter. The Glenlitten diamond necklace is still missing—a necklace worth thirty thousand pounds. Even the half of that might make a man comfortable for the rest of his life.”
The two occupants of the cab, as though by accident, exchanged glances.
“I call myself,” Mr. Felix Main went on, a moment or two later, “a private detective. I have had many clients, but all of the same order. They have all come to me to discover by whom they have been robbed, wronged, or otherwise hurt. Now it has sometimes, in my thoughtful moments, surprised