e of them?"

"Exactly. There was a hitch in disposing of them in Amsterdam, as had
been intended, and though the diamonds had been knocked from their
settings, I found them intact."

He told me that Forbes was the actual thief, who had so daringly
travelled to Finsbury Park and collected the tickets _en route_. He
had practically confessed to having thrown the bag out to Reckitt and
Pennington, who were waiting at a point eight miles north of
Peterborough. They had used an electric flash-lamp as they stood in
the darkness near the line, and the thief, on the look-out for the
light, tossed the bag out on to the embankment.

"Then my father-in-law is a thief!" I remarked, with chagrin, when the
sergeant and constable had been dismissed. "It was for that reason my
wife dare not face me and make explanation!"

"You apparently believe Arnold Du Cane, alias Winton, alias
Pennington, to be Sylvia's father--but such is not the case," remarked
the great detective slowly. "To his career attaches a very remarkable
story--one which, in my long experience in the unravelling of
mysteries of crime, has never been equalled."

"Tell me it," I implored him eagerly. "Where is my poor wife?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE FRENCHMAN MAKES A STATEMENT

"Ah! I regret, m'sieur, that I do not know," replied the Frenchman.
"And yet," he added, after a second's hesitation, "I do not exactly
regret. Perhaps it is best, after all, that I should remain in
ignorance. But, Monsieur Biddulph, I would make one request on your
wife's behalf."

"On her behalf!" I gasped. "What is it?"

"That you do not prejudge her. She has left you because--well, because
she had good reason. But one day, when you know the truth, you will
certainly not judge her too harshly."

"I do not judge her harshly," I protested. "How can I, when I love her
as devotedly as I do! I feel confident that the misfortunes she has
brought upon me were not of her own seeking."

"She very narrowly escaped the vengeance of those two assassins,"
Guertin said; "how narrowly, neither you nor she will ever know. For
months I have watched them closely, both here and in France and
Germany, in order to catch them red-handed; but they have been too
clever for me, and we must rely upon the evidence which that
back-garden in Porchester Terrace will now yield up. The gang is part
of a great criminal association, that society of international
thieves of which one member was the man yo