Part 31 (2/2)

”And what of Bell?”

”He narrowly escaped the guillotine, and is now imprisoned for life at Devil's Island.”

”And you saw him with me at Paris?” I remarked, in wonder at this strange revelation. ”He certainly never struck me as an a.s.sa.s.sin. He was a shrewd man--a swindler, no doubt, but his humorous bearing and his good-nature were entirely opposed to the belief that his was a sinister nature.”

”Yet it was proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he and another man killed and robbed a young Englishman named Burke,” responded the Frenchman. ”Perhaps you, yourself, had a narrow escape. Who knows? It was no doubt lucky for you that he was arrested.”

”But I understood that the charge was one of fraud,” I said. ”I intended to go to the trial, but I was called to Italy.”

”The charge of fraud was made in order not to alarm his accomplice,”

replied the stranger.

”How do you know that?” I inquired.

”Well”--he hesitated--”that came out at the trial. There were full accounts of it in the Paris _Matin_.”

”I don't care for reading a.s.size Court horrors,” I replied, still puzzled regarding my strange companion's intimate knowledge concerning the man whose dramatic and sudden arrest had, on that memorable afternoon, so startled me.

”When I saw your face just now,” he said, ”I recognized you as being at the Grand Hotel with Bell. Do you know,” he laughed, ”you were such a close friend of the accused that you were suspected of being a member of the dangerous a.s.sociation! Indeed, you very narrowly escaped arrest on suspicion. It was only because the reception clerk in the hotel knew you well, and vouched for your respectability and that Biddulph was your real name. Yet, for a full week, you were watched closely by the _surete_.”

”And I was all unconscious of it!” I cried, realizing how narrowly I had escaped a very unpleasant time. ”How do you know all this?” I asked.

But the Frenchman with the gold gla.s.ses and the big amethyst ring upon his finger merely laughed, and refused to satisfy me.

From him, however, I learned that the depredations of the formidable gang had been unequalled in the annals of crime. Many of the greatest jewel robberies in the European capitals in recent years had, it was now proved, been effected by them, as well as the theft of the Marchioness of Mottisfont's jewels at Victoria Station, which were valued at eighteen thousand pounds, and were never recovered; the breaking open of the safe of Levi & Andrews, the well-known diamond-merchants of Hatton Garden, and the theft of a whole vanload of furs before a shop in New Bond Street, all of which are, no doubt, fresh within the memory of the reader of the daily newspapers.

Every single member of that remarkable a.s.sociation of thieves was an expert in his or her branch of dishonesty, while the common fund was a large one, hence members could disguise themselves as wealthy persons, if need be. One, when arrested, was found occupying a fine old castle in the Tyrol, he told me; another--an expert burglar--was a doctor in good practice at Hampstead; another kept a fine jeweller's shop in Ma.r.s.eilles, while another, a lady, lived in style in a great chateau near Nevers.

”And who exposed them?” I asked, much interested. ”Somebody must have betrayed them.”

”Somebody did betray them--by anonymous letters to the police--letters which were received at intervals at the Prefecture in Paris, and led to the arrest of one after another of the chief members of the gang.

It seemed to have been done by some one irritated by Bell's arrest.

But the ident.i.ty of the informant has never been ascertained. He deemed it best to remain hidden--for obvious reasons,” laughed my friend at my side.

”You seem to know a good many facts regarding the affair,” I said.

”Have you no idea of the ident.i.ty of the mysterious informant?”

”Well”--he hesitated--”I have a suspicion that it was some person a.s.sociated with them--some one who became conscience-stricken. Ah!

M'sieur Biddulph, if you only knew the marvellous cunning of that invulnerable gang. Had it not been for that informant, they would still be operating--in open defiance of the police of Europe. Criminal methods, if expert, only fail for want of funds. Are not some of our wealthiest financiers mere criminals who, by dealing in thousands, as other men deal in francs, conceal their criminal methods? Half your successful financiers are merely successful adventurers. The _dossiers_ of some of them, preserved in the police bureaux, would be astounding reading to those who admire them and proclaim them the successful men of to-day--kings of finance they call them!”

”You are certainly something of a philosopher,” I laughed, compelled to admit the truth of his argument; ”but tell me--how is it that you know so much concerning George Harriman, alias Bell, and his antecedents?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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