"Why," cried the sergeant, "Monsieur Guertin is well known! His name figures in the papers only this morning as arresting two Englishmen in Paris for a mysterious murder alleged to have been committed in some house in Bayswater!" "In Bayswater!" I gasped. "In Porchester Terrace?" "Yes," replied the famous French detective. "It is true that I know Reckitt and Forbes. But I only knew them in order to get at the truth. They never suspected me, and early yesterday morning I went to the snug little apartments they have in the Rue de Rouen, and arrested them, together with two young Frenchmen named Terassier and Brault. Concealed beneath a loose board in the bedroom of the last-named man I found the missing gems." "Then Terassier and Brault were the two men who met the others in Stamford, and carried the diamonds across to the Continent, intending to dispose of them?" "Exactly. There was a hitch in disposing of them in Amsterdam, as had been intended, and though the diamonds had been knocked from their settings, I found them intact." He told me that Forbes was the actual thief, who had so daringly travelled to Finsbury Park and collected the tickets _en route_. He had practically confessed to having thrown the bag out to Reckitt and Pennington, who were waiting at a point eight miles north of Peterborough. They had used an electric flash-lamp as they stood in the darkness near the line, and the thief, on the look-out for the light, tossed the bag out on to the embankment. "Then my father-in-law is a thief!" I remarked, with chagrin, when the sergeant and constable had been dismissed. "It was for that reason my wife dare not face me and make explanation!" "You apparently believe Arnold Du Cane, alias Winton, alias Pennington, to be Sylvia's father--but such is not the case," remarked the great detective slowly. "To his career attaches a very remarkable story--one which, in my long experience in the unravelling of mysteries of crime, has never been equalled." "Tell me it," I implored him eagerly. "Where is my poor wife?" CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT THE FRENCHMAN MAKES A STATEMENT "Ah! I regret, m'sieur, that I do not know," replied the Frenchman. "And yet," he added, after a second's hesitation, "I do not exactly regret. Perhaps it is best, after all, that I should remain in ignorance. But, Monsieur Biddulph, I would make one request on your wife's behalf." "On her behalf!" I gasped. "What is it?" "That you do not prejudge her. She has left you because--well, because she had good reason. But one day, when you know the truth, you will certainly not judge her too harshly." "I do not judge her harshly," I protested. "How can I, when I love her as devotedly as I do! I feel confident that the misfortunes she has brought upon me were not of her own seeking."