taken precautions," replied Monsieur Coulagne, smiling. "I
have ordered ten men in plain clothes to go at once unobtrusively to
the Hotel du Luxembourg, and arrest him when he returns."

"That will frighten De Gex and Moroni," I said quickly. "And if they
are frightened they will escape!"

Rivero laughed. I knew that he entirely disbelieved my statement. In
his eyes the wealthy friend of Spain could do no wrong. Did not his
King invite him to conference, in ignorance, of course, of his true
character?

I was not surprised at Rivero's attitude, yet I had hoped that
Despujol's arrest would be effected without the knowledge of De Gex
and his sinister medical friend.

I pointed this out, whereupon Rivero remarked with sarcasm:

"If what you allege against Senor De Gex and his friend be true, they
ought also to be arrested."

"Yes. They ought, and they will be when I am able to bring forward
sufficient evidence to convict them," I replied warmly. "Why, I ask
you, should Oswald De Gex be in secret association with that dangerous
bandit?"

The Spaniard merely shrugged his shoulders, while at the Commissary's
request a dossier was brought in, and then they both went through a
long catalogue of crimes alleged to have been instigated or actually
committed by the man whom I had found in my bedroom, and who had so
cleverly deceived me.

The list was a formidable one, and showed how elusive was the man whom
the police of Europe had been hunting for so long.

Among the big batch of papers was a report in English from the
Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard stating that the individual in
question had arrived in London on a certain date, and stayed with a
respectable family at Ham, near Richmond, representing himself to be a
lawyer from Barcelona. Thence he had gone to Glasgow, where he stayed
at a certain hotel, and then moved to Oban. Afterwards he had come
south again to Luton, in Bedfordshire, where all trace of him had been
lost.

"Well," laughed Rivero triumphantly, "we shall take good care not to
lose him now!"

"No," said the Commissary of Police. "My men will be armed, and will
take him, alive or dead!"

"And De Gex and Moroni will then instantly flee!" I said, full of
regret that I had taken that step which might so easily result in
destroying all my chances of solving that puzzling enigma of Gabrielle
Tennison.

Nevertheless, it was a source of satisfaction that at last Despujol
had, by my watchfulness, b