Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/233



ou owe us an explanation, I think, Mr. Cade,” said Herman Isaacstein, somewhat later in the evening.

“There’s nothing much to explain,” said Anthony modestly. “I went to Dover and Fish followed me under the impression that I was King Victor. We found a mysterious stranger imprisoned there, and as soon as we heard his story we knew where we were. The same idea again, you see. The real man kidnapped, and the false one—in this case King Victor himself—takes his place. But it seems that Battle here always thought there was something fishy about his French colleague, and wired to Paris for his finger-prints and other means of identification.”

“Ah!” cried the Baron. “The finger-prints. The Bertillon measurements that that scoundrel talked about?”

“It was a clever idea,” said Anthony. “I admired it so much that I felt forced to play up. Besides, my doing so puzzled the false Lemoine enormously. You see, as soon as I had given the tip about the ‘rows’ and where the jewel really was, he was keen to pass on the news to his accomplice, and at the same time to keep us all in that room. The note was really to Mademoiselle Brun. He told Tredwell to deliver it at once, and Tredwell did so by taking it upstairs to the schoolroom. Lemoine accused me of being King Victor, by that means creating a diversion and preventing anyone from leaving the room. By the time all that had been cleared up and we adjourned to the library to look for the stone, he flattered himself that the stone would no longer be there to find!”

George cleared his throat.

“I must say, Mr. Cade,” he said pompously, “that I consider your action in that matter highly reprehensible. If the