"I must beg you to excuse me, Mr. Pinkerton," he replied. "You see, I am in this country in an official capacity, and, while I am personally perfectly satisfied of the truth of the statements I have made to you, I cannot prove them; hence, I must be careful not to involve myself in a difficulty which would compromise my position as a diplomatic agent of Great Britain. I shall immediately give to the police, on my arrival in London, a description of this man, and I presume that prompt action will be taken to insure his arrest and extradition, in case his offenses should come under the extradition treaty. But as this is a question upon which the decision of both governments may be required, the delay may enable this man to escape. I will use all my influence with the London authorities; you will readily see, however, that personally I cannot appear here as an accuser against him." I recognized the force of Mr. Warne's objection, and did not press him further, but Judge Key agreed to visit the Senator as soon as the latter should return to the city. When I left Mr. Warne we had agreed that any British official who might be sent to identify and arrest Don Pedro, should communicate with me the moment he arrived in this country, so that we could work together for the same object, though my whole duty in the case would be to protect the interests of my client, Senator Muirhead. I then returned to my room with Mr. Bangs, and made a new move. I saw that more than two months would elapse before any news could be expected from London, as Mr. Warne would be somewhat delayed in his return home, and meantime, the Don would probably obtain a large advance payment for his fictitious mines. If anything should occur to prevent us from sending him to England, he might succeed in getting away with his plunder before we could find any new grounds upon which to hold him. I therefore instructed Mr. Bangs to write to the proper authorities in Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador, describing Don Pedro and his numerous suspected _aliases_ accurately, and asking that some steps be taken by his victims to bring him to justice. It was true that we had no extradition treaties with those countries, but nevertheless he might be arrested and frightened into surrendering himself voluntarily. The letters were dispatched at once, and duplicates were also forwarded by the next steamer. There remained nothing further for me to do except to keep a strict watch upon the Moritos to see that they should not slip off suddenly with a large sum of money. The Diamond Company were in such haste to bind the bargain with Don Pedro, by making him a large payment, that there could be no hope of preventing the partial success of his scheme. Whether I might not be able to force him to disgorge afterward was uncertain, but I determined to use every means in my power to accomplish such a result. CHAPTER V.