"By Jove!" he exclaimed, as soon as the door had closed, "I had a narrow squeak--a confoundedly narrow squeak. You got my wire from Amersfoort?" he asked of Mason. "Yes. I've just been explaining to the Prince what happened on the night of the dinner-party," replied the pale-faced man. "Tell me. I'm all anxiety to know," urged the valet. "I left Garrett in Rosendaal. He's utterly puzzled." "I expect he is," Mason responded. "The fact is that he's just as much puzzled as the wily Italian himself. It's a good job I was able to locate that fellow as one of old Blair-Stewart's servants up at Glenblair Castle. You remember--when we met `Le Bravache' on his own ground," Mason went on. "Well, I played the part of detective, and wrote to him secretly, asking him to meet me in Whitby. He did so, and to him I confided my suspicions of you all, promising him a police reward of two hundred pounds if he kept his eye on you, watched, and informed me of all that was in progress. Of course I bound him to the most complete secrecy. He tumbled into the trap at once. The Prince had, of course, previously got wax-impressions of the widow's safe-key, for she had one day inadvertently given her key to him to go and unlock a cabinet in the library. Three times the suspicious butler met me, and made secret reports on your doings. He watched you like a cat. Then, on the night of the dinner-party, I had an appointment with him at one o'clock in the morning. I stole our car, and ran it noiselessly by the back road through the park to the spot where he was to meet me. He came punctually, and got in the car at my side to be driven into Whitby, where he supposed three detectives were in waiting. My story was that we were to pick them up at the hotel, drive back to the Hall, and arrest the lot of you. He was delighted with the project, and on joining me had a nip of whisky from my flask just to keep out the night air. Ten minutes later he was _hors de combat_. I'd doctored the whisky, so, pulling up, I bound and gagged him, and deposited him in a disused cow-house on the opposite side of a field on the edge of Roxby High Moor--a place I'd previously prospected. Having thus got rid of him, I turned the car back again to a spot within a mile of Milnthorpe lodge-gates--previously arranged with the Prince--and there, close by a stile, I found a biggish packet wrapped hurriedly in brown paper. Its feel was sufficient to tell me that it was the boodle. The Prince and the Parson had secured it after Ferrini had absented himself, and having placed it there in readiness for me, had quietly returned to their beds. With it under the seat I drove south as hard as I could by Driffield into Hull. Before I got there I changed the identification plate, obliterated the coronets on the panels with the enamel I found in readiness, and leaving the car in a garage, got across to Bergen, in Norway, and thence by train down to Christiania, Copenhagen, and here."