olled their actions with
an iron hand. Once every six months the members from all over Europe
held a secret conference in one capital or another, when various tasks
were allotted to various persons. The precautions taken to prevent
blunders were amazing, and we were baffled always because of the
widespread field of their operations, and the large number of experts
engaged. The band, broken up into small and independent gangs, worked
in unison with receivers always ready, and as soon as our suspicions
were aroused by one party they disappeared, and another, complete
strangers, came in their place. Premises likely to yield good results
from burglary were watched for months by a constant succession of
clever watchers, and people in possession of valuables sometimes
engaged servants of irreproachable character who were actually members
of the gang. Were their exploits chronicled, they would fill many
volumes of remarkable fact, only some of which have appeared in recent
years in the columns of the newspapers. Every European nationality and
every phase of life were represented in that extraordinary assembly,
which, while under Poland's control, never, as far as is known,
committed a single murder. It was only when the great leader was
condemned and exiled, and the band fell away, that Pennington, Reckitt
and Forbes conceived the idea of extorting money by means of the
serpent, allowing the reptile to strike fatally, and so prevent
exposure. By that horrible torture of the innocent and helpless they
must have netted many thousands of pounds."

"It was you, you say, who arrested Poland down in Hampshire."

"Yes, nearly three years ago. Prior to Harriman's arrest, I went there
with my friend Watts, of Scotland Yard, and on that evening a strange
affair happened--an affair which is still a mystery. I'll tell you all
about it later," he added. "At present I must go to Porchester Terrace
and see what is in progress. I only arrived in London from Paris two
hours ago."

I begged him to take me along with him, and with some reluctance he
consented. On the way, Guertin told me a strange story of a dead man
exactly resembling himself at Middleton village on the night of
Poland's arrest. Arrived at the house of grim shadows, we found a
constable idling outside the gate, but apparently nobody yet knew of
what was transpiring in the garden behind the closed house. At first
the man declined to allow us to enter, but, on Guertin declarin