“She found him very easy to deal with. Calliard no doubt was a good business man in many ways, or he would not have been entrusted with such important missions, but for one of his age he struck me as singularly simple. And he was garrulous and communicative in the extreme. He blurted out a lot of things to me which he would have shown wisdom in keeping to himself. He took me on trust, as it were, on my production of a card stating my name and profession. That card might easily have been prepared for the purpose. I give this as an illustration of his simplicity, of his tendency to take things at their face value. A clever woman would twist him round her little finger, easily get out of him what she wanted to know. Neither in Rome nor Trouville did they find things fall out quite in accordance with their plans. It was not till they got him to Paris that they were able to set to work in grim earnest, with the result we know.” “None of the jewellery has been traced, I suppose?” “Not that I have heard of,” was the detective’s answer. “They had their plans cut and dried, you may depend. A few hours after they had got hold of the stuff you can be sure the valuable stones were out of their settings and on the way to a safe market.” After a little while, Lydon spoke. “You have reconstructed the whole thing very cleverly, and in my own mind I feel you are right. But we have really no tangible evidence against Stormont, have we?” Grewgus shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing that would convince a jury, I fear. It is all intensely circumstantial. Still, that letter of his to Zillah which you intercepted is a very important link. Would you like me to go to Scotland Yard and put them in possession of all we know, so that they could join forces with the Paris police?” But Leonard could not bring himself to consent to this step. The thought of his beloved Gloria, of her father, a man of the highest probity and honour, forbade it. Much as he would have rejoiced, for his dead friend’s sake, that Elise Makris should be punished, he shrank from bringing disgrace upon Howard Stormont’s innocent relatives. It was finally arranged between the two men that Grewgus should still keep a watch upon the flat in Ashstead Mansions, and note the further movements of Whitehouse and his supposed niece. It was evident that this taciturn individual had taken no active part in the Calliard affair, was not even so much implicated in it as Stormont appeared to be by that letter to his “clever Zillah.” But Grewgus had a very strong suspicion that the couple worked very closely together.