"He begins by going to Sir Montague Bowden and begging him to entrust the mission to somebody else. Judging by the butler's evidence, he even makes a clean breast of his troubles to Sir Montague who, however, makes light of them and advises consultation with Mr. Haasberg, who perhaps would undertake the journey. In any case it is too late to make fresh arrangements at this hour. Very reluctantly now, and hoping for the best, the Saunderses make a start. But the blackmailer, too, is on the alert, he has succeeded in spying upon them and in tracing them to the Majestic in Paris. The situation now has become terribly serious, for the blackmailer has thrown off the mask and demands the necklace under threats which apparently the Saunderses did not dare defy. "But they are both clever and resourceful, and as soon as Haasberg's arrival rids them temporarily their tormentor, they put their heads together and invent a plot which was destined to free them for ever from the threats of Pasquier and at the same time would enable them to honour the trust which had been placed in them by the committee. In any case, they had until the morrow to make up their minds. Remember the words which Mr. Haasberg overheard on the part of Pasquier: 'S'long, old man. I'll wait till to-morrow!' Anyway, Pasquier must have gone off that evening confident that he had Captain Saunders entirely in his power, and that the wretched man would on the morrow hand over the necklace without demur. "Whether Arthur Saunders confided in Haasberg or not is doubtful. Personally I think not. I believe that he and Mary did the whole thing between them. Arthur having parted from his brother-in-law went back to the hotel, took the necklace out of the strong-room and then left it in Mary's charge. He threw the tin box away, there where it would surely be found again. Then he went as far as the Rue de Moncigny and crouched, seemingly unconscious, in the blind alley, having previously taken the precaution of saturating his handkerchief with chloroform. "Thus the two clever conspirators cut the ground from under the blackmailer's feet, for the latter now had the police after him for an assault, which he might find very difficult to disprove, even if he cleared himself of the charge of having stolen the necklace. Anyway he would remain a discredited man, and his threats would in the future be defied, because if he dared come out in the open after that, public feeling would be so bitter against him for a crime which he had not committed that he would never be listened to if he tried to do Captain Saunders an injury. And it was with a view of keeping public indignation at boiling pitch against the supposed thief that the Saunderses kept up the comedy for so long. To my mind that was a very clever move. Then they came out with the story of the restoration of the necklace and became the heroes of the hour.