"Then it is to be regretted. In that case, Monsieur Kemball, you must please consider yourself under arrest as an accomplice and associate of the two individuals in question," he said, very coolly but determinedly; and as he uttered the words two men, police-officers in plain clothes, who had evidently been listening without, opened the door unceremoniously and entered the apartment. The situation was both startling and unexpected. I was now faced with a most difficult problem. I was under arrest; my silence had cost me my liberty! Asta and her stepfather must also have both already fallen into the hands of the police, for were they not upstairs? Truly the _coup_ had been very swiftly and cleverly effected, as it seemed were all _coups_ made by the renowned Tramu, the trusted lieutenant of Monsieur Hamard of the Surete in Paris. The misfortune so long dreaded by Asta had, alas! fallen. What must the result be? Ay, what indeed! What could be the charge against them? CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. MORE MYSTERY. Ignorant of the fate of my friends, I was unceremoniously bundled into a fiacre and driven to the police bureau, where for nearly three hours I was closely questioned regarding my own identity and my knowledge of Harvey Shaw. Aix-les-Bains being a gambling centre, it attracts half the _escrocs_ in Europe; hence, stationed here and there are several of the smartest and shrewdest police officials which France possesses. At the hands of Victor Tramu and two of his colleagues I was subjected to the closest interrogation in a small bare room with threadbare carpet and walls painted dark green, the headquarters of the Surete in that district. The population of Aix in summer is much the same as that of Monte Carlo in winter--a heterogeneous, cosmopolitan collection of wealthy pigeons and hawks of both sexes and all nationalities. From the thousand and one questions with which I fenced I tried to gather the nature of the offence of which Harvey Shaw was culpable, but all to no avail. I asked Tramu point-blank if he and his foster-daughter had been arrested, but no information would he give. "I am asking questions--not you, m'sieur," was his cold reply. All the interrogation seemed directed towards ascertaining the hiding-place of Shaw in England. "You knew him in England," remarked Tramu, seated at a table upon which was a telephone instrument, while I stood between the two agents of police who had arrested me. "Where did you first meet him?" "At a railway station." "Under what circumstances?" "I had a message to deliver--a letter from a dead friend." Tramu smiled incredulously, as did also the two other officials at his side. "And this dead friend--who was he?" asked the renowned detective. "A man whom I had met on a steamer between Naples and London. He was a stranger to me, but being taken ill on board, I tried to do what I could for him. He died in London soon after our arrival." "His name?" "Melvill Arnold."