"Think it over," the funny creature went on, as he finally stuffed his bit of string back into his pocket and rose from the table, "think it over and you will realise at once that everything happened just as I have related, and that it is the only theory that fits in with the facts that are known; you'll also agree with me, I think, that Captain and Mrs. Saunders chose the one way of ridding themselves effectually of a dangerous blackmailer. The police were after him for a long time, as they still believed that he had something to do with the theft of the necklace and with the assault on M. le Capitaine Saunders. But presently 1914 came along and what became of the man with the walrus moustache no one ever knew. What his nationality was was never stated at the time, but whatever it was, it would, I imagine, be a bar against his obtaining a visa on his passport for the purpose of visiting England and blackmailing Arthur Saunders. "But it was a curious case." IV THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSSIAN PRINCE §1 There had been a great deal of talk about that time, in newspapers and amongst the public, of the difficulty an inexperienced criminal finds in disposing of the evidences of his crime--notably of course of the body of his victim. In no case perhaps was this difficulty so completely overcome--at any rate as far as was publicly known--as in that of the murder of the individual known as Prince Orsoff. I am thus qualifying his title because as a matter of fact the larger public never believed that he was a genuine Prince--Russian or otherwise--and that even if he had not come by such a violent and tragic death the Smithsons would never have seen either their ten thousand pounds again or poor Louisa's aristocratic bridegroom. I had been thinking a great deal about this mysterious affair, indeed it had been discussed at most of the literary and journalistic clubs as a possible subject for a romance or drama, and it was with deliberate intent that I walked over to Fleet Street one afternoon, in order to catch the Old Man in the Corner in his accustomed teashop, and get him to give me his views on the subject of the mystery that to this very day surrounds the murder of the Russian Prince. "Let me just put the whole case before you," the funny creature began as soon as I had led him to talk upon the subject, "as far as it was known to the general public. It all occurred in Folkestone, you remember, where the wedding of Louisa Smithson, the daughter of a late retired grocer, to a Russian Prince whom she had met abroad, was the talk of the town.