The sight of Talbot's letter seemed to fire Brett's imagination. He radiated electric energy. Both Lord Fairholme and Miss Talbot felt that in his presence all doubts vanished. They realized, without knowing why, that this man of power, this human dynamo, would quickly dispel the clouds which now rendered the outlook so forbidding. For the moment, heedless of their presence, he began to pace the room in the strenuous concentration of his thoughts. Once he halted in front of the small bust of Edgar Allan Poe, whose pedestal still imprisoned the two cuttings of a newspaper which formed the barrister's first links with the tragedy. His ideas suddenly reverted to the paragraph describing the efforts of the Porte to obtain from the French Government the extradition of a fugitive relative of the Sultan. At that instant, too, a tiny clock on the mantelpiece chimed forth the hour of eight.

"That settles it," said Brett aloud. "Smith," he vociferated.

And Smith appeared.

"Pack up sufficient belongings for a short trip to the Continent. Don't forget a rug and a greatcoat. Have the portmanteau on a cab at the door within three minutes."

"I am sorry, Miss Talbot," he continued, with his charming smile and a manner as free from perplexity as if he was announcing a formal visit to his grandmother. "I have just decided to go to Paris at once. The train leaves Victoria at 8.15. Lord Fairholme will take you home, and you will both, I am sure, be able to convince Sir Hubert that to yield too greatly to anxiety just now is to suffer needless pain."

"You are going to Paris, Mr. Brett!" cried Edith. "Why?"

"In obedience to an impulse. I always yield to impulses. They impress me as constituting Nature's telegraphs. I have a favourite theory that we all contain a neatly devised adaptation of Marconi's wireless system, and the time may come when the secret will be scientifically laid bare. Then, don't you see, it will be possible for a man in London to ring up a sympathetic soul in San Francisco. At present the code is not understood. It is not even properly named, so people are apt to distrust impulses."

He rattled on so pleasantly that Edith, absorbed by the agony of her brother's disappearance and possible disgrace, could not conceal an expression of blank amazement at his levity.

Brett instantly became apologetic.

"Pray forgive my apparent flippancy, Miss Talbot," he said. "I am really in earnest. I believe that a flying visit to Paris just now must unquestionably advance us an important stage in this inquiry. Let me explain exactly what I mean. Here is a letter from your brother, in handwriting which you and others best qualified to judge declare to be undeniably his. It also bears postmarks which would demonstrate to a court of law that it was posted in Paris last night and received here to-day. But it does not follow that it was written in Paris; it might have been written anywhere. Now, according to the police, there is an entry in the visitors' book at the Grand Hotel which appears to prove that your brother wrote his name therein on Tuesday night. If the handwriting in the Grand Hotel register corresponds beyond all doubt with that in this letter and envelope, then your brother must be in Paris. If it does not, he is not there. I am convinced that the latter hypothesis is correct, but to make doubly sure I will go and see with my own eyes. There now—I owed you an explanation, and I have barely time to catch my train. Good-bye. I will wire you in the morning."

He placed the mysterious letter in his note-book, gave them a parting smile, and was gone.

He managed to catch the 8.15, which started punctually, the sole remnant of railway virtue possessed by the Chatham and South Eastern line. A restful porter, quickened into active life by a half-crown tip, found him a vacant seat in a first-class smoking carriage, and Brett's hasty glance round the compartment revealed that his travelling companions, as far as Dover, at any rate, were severely respectable Britons bound for the Riviera.

The harbour station at Dover wore its usual aspect of dejected misery. The hurrying passengers pushed and jostled each other in their frenzied efforts to board the steamer, for the average British tourist has a rooted belief that such pushing and jostling and banging of apoplectic portmanteaus against the legs of others are absolutely necessary if he would not be left behind.

With an experience born of many voyages, Brett quickly noted the direction of the wind and the vessel's bearings. A stiff breeze had brought up a moderate sea, and the barrister dumped down his bag and flung himself into a chair on what a novice would regard as the weather side of the charthouse. He bore the discomfort for a few minutes, and was rewarded for his foresight by possessing the most sequestered nook on deck when the vessel turned her head seawards and began one of the shortest, but perhaps the most disagreeable, voyages in the world.

Having retained his seat long enough to establish a proprietary right therein, Brett rose and made a short tour of the ship. To distinguish any one on deck was almost out of the question. The passengers were huddled up in indefinable shapes, and there was hardly light sufficient to effect a stumbling progress over the multitude of hand-baggage. So the barrister dived down the companion-way and cannoned against a burly individual who had propped himself against a bulkhead on the main deck saloon.

Something hard in the man's pockets gave Brett a sharp rap, and when they separated with mutual apologies, he laughed silently.

"Handcuffs!" he murmured. "Scotland Yard is always prepared for emergencies. I will wager a considerable sum that as soon as Winter reached headquarters his story about the letter caused a telegram to be despatched to Dover. Here's a detective bound for Paris and prepared to manacle Talbot the moment he sees him. What a fearful and wonderful thing is the English police system. A crime, obviously clever in its conception and treatment, can be handled by a sharp policeman wearing regulation boots and armed with handcuffs. Really, I must have a drink."

Clinging to the hand-rails and executing some crude but effective balancing feats, he reached the dining saloon, which was woefully denuded of occupants, for the English Channel that night had sternly set its face against the indiscriminate use of cold ham and pickles.

Near the bar, however, solemnly digesting a liqueur, stood a man to whom the choppy sea evidently gave no concern. He had the square shoulders, neat-fitting clothes and closely clipped appearance at the back of the neck which mark the British officer; but he also stood square on his feet and swayed with unconscious ease whether the vessel pitched or rolled or executed the combined movement.

"Now, I wonder," said Brett, "if that is Captain Gaultier. He must be. Gaultier, from his name, should be a Jersey man, hence his facility in foreign languages and his employment as a Foreign Office messenger. It's worth trying. I will make the experiment."

He reached the bar and ordered a whisky and soda. Turning affably to the stranger, he remarked—

"Nasty night, isn't it? I hope we shan't be much behind time."

The stranger glanced at him with sharp and inquisitive eyes, but the glance evidently reassured him, for he replied quite pleasantly—

"Oh, no. A matter of a few minutes, perhaps. They usually manage to make up any delay after we leave Calais."

"That's good," said Brett, "because I want to be in Paris at the earliest possible moment."

The other man smiled.

"We are due there at 5.38," he said. "Rather an early hour for business, isn't it?"

"Well, yes," assented the barrister, "under ordinary circumstances, but as my only business in Paris is to examine an hotel register and then get something to eat before I return, I do not wish to waste time unnecessarily on the road."

The other man nodded affably, but gave no sign of further interest.

"So," communed Brett, "if it be Gaultier, he has not heard the latest developments. I must try a frontal attack."

"Does your name happen to be Gaultier?" he went on.

The stranger arrested his liqueur glass in the final tilt.

"It does," he said; "but I do not think I have the pleasure of knowing you."

"No," said Brett, "you haven't."

"Well?" said the other man.

"The fact is," said Brett, "I heard you had been in London. I guessed from your appearance that you might be a King's messenger, and it was just possible that the Captain Gaultier in whom I was interested might start back to the Continent to-night, so I put two and two together, don't you see, with the result that they made four, a thing which doesn't always happen in deduction if in mathematics."

Now, Foreign Office messengers are not chosen for their simplicity or general want of intelligence. Captain Gaultier eyed his questioner with some degree of stern suspicion as he said from behind his cigar—

"May I ask who you are?"

"Certainly," replied Brett, producing his card.

After a quick glance at the pasteboard, Gaultier continued—

"I suppose, Mr. Brett, you have some motive in addressing me? What is it?"

"I am interested in the fate of a man named Talbot," was the straightforward reply, "and as you told the Under-Secretary that you had seen Talbot crossing to Paris in company with a lady last Tuesday, I hoped that perhaps you would not mind discussing the matter with me."

Captain Gaultier was evidently puzzled. Private conversations with Under-Secretaries of State are not, as a rule, public property, and his momentary intention to decline further conversation with this good-looking and fascinating stranger was checked by remembrance of the fact.

"Really, Mr. Brett," he said, "although I do not question the accuracy of your statement, you will readily understand that I can hardly discuss the matter with you under the circumstances."

"Naturally. You would not be holding a responsible position in His Majesty's service if you were at all likely to do any such thing. But I propose, in the first instance, to reassure you as to my bona fides, and I may point out, in the second place, that as I have met you by a fortunate chance, you can hardly deem it a breach of confidence to discuss with me the mere accidental appearance on a cross-Channel steamer of a man known not only to both of us, but to society at large."

Gaultier clearly hesitated, but did not refuse to accept the Under-Secretary's letter, which Brett handed to him, with the words—

"You know the handwriting, no doubt?"

"That speaks for itself." The King's messenger smiled when he returned the note. "It is an odd coincidence," he added, "and still more curious that you should spot me so readily. However, Mr. Brett, we have now cleared the air. What can I do for you?"

"Simply this," said the barrister; "do you mind telling me how you came to recognize Mr. Talbot?"

"Well, for one thing," was the thoughtful reply, "I knew his overcoat. I often met Talbot in the Foreign Office, and one day he drove me to his club wearing a very handsome coat lined with astrachan. It struck me as a peculiarly comfortable and well-fitting one, and although there are plenty of men about town who may possess astrachan coats, it is a reasonable assumption that this was the identical garment when it happened to be worn by the man himself."

"Then you are quite certain it was Talbot?" went on the barrister.

"Quite certain."

"Would you swear it was he, though his life depended on your accuracy?"

"Well, no, perhaps not that; but I would certainly swear that I believed it was Mr. Talbot."

"Ah, that is a material difference. The only way in which you could be positively certain was to enter into conversation with him, was it not?"

"Yes, that is so."

"I do not want you to think, Captain Gaultier, that I am cross-examining you. Let me tell you at once that I believe you saw someone masquerading in Talbot's clothes, and made up to represent him. Was there anything about his appearance that might lend credence to such a view?"

The other reflected a little while before answering.

"There was only one thing," he said—"he did not seem to notice me. Now, he is a sharp sort of chap, and as it was broad daylight and a fine day, he must have seen me, for he knows me well. Again, from all that I have heard of him, I do not think that he would either pass an acquaintance without speaking to him, nor take flying trips to the Continent with ladies of the music-hall persuasion."

"You have supplied two very powerful reasons why the individual you saw should not be Jack Talbot. Yet, as you say, it was broad daylight, and you had a good look at him."

"No, no," interrupted the other. "I had a good look at his coat—and the lady. Whoever the man was, he appeared to be wrapped up in both of them, and he certainly did not court observation. I naturally thought that the feminine attachment accounted for this, and for the same reason, I did not even seek to scrutinize him too closely. To put the thing in a nutshell, I saw a man whom I believed to be Jack Talbot—and who certainly resembled him in face and figure—attired in Talbot's clothes, and wearing a coat which I had noted so particularly as to be able to describe it to my tailor when ordering a similar one. Add to that the appearance of an attractive lady, young and unknown, and you have my soul laid bare to you in the matter."

"Thank you," said Brett. "I am much obliged."

He would have quitted the saloon, but Captain Gaultier laughed—

"Hold on a bit: it is my turn now. Suppose I try to pump you."

A giant wave took hold of the vessel and shook her violently, and Brett, though an average amateur sailor, felt that the saloon was no place for him.

"Between you and the ship, Captain Gaultier," he said, "the success of the operation would be certain. I have secured a quiet corner of the deck. If you wish for further talk we must adjourn there."

The transit was effected without incident, much to Brett's relief. After a minute or two he felt that a cigar was possible. He turned to his companion with a quiet observation—

"The vessel has failed. You can start now."

"Well," said Gaultier, "tell me what is the mystery attaching to Talbot's movements. I only heard the vaguest of rumours in the Department, but something very terrible appears to have happened, and, indeed, I heartily wished I had kept my mouth shut concerning my supposed meeting with him last Tuesday, as the affair was no business of mine. Moreover, you have now somewhat shaken my belief in his identity, although I can hardly tell you why that should be so."

Brett paused to make sure that no one would overhear him, but the fierce wind whistling round the chart house and bridge, the seas that smote the ship's quarter with a thunderous noise, the all-pervading sense of riotous fury in the elements, rendered the precaution almost unnecessary. In any case, there was no one near enough to act the part of eavesdropper, and Brett, exercising the rapid decision which frequently impressed others as a gift of divination, determined that to let such a man as the King's messenger into the secret could not possibly be harmful to the interests of his client, whilst his help might be beneficial.

In the fewest possible words, therefore, he poured the tale into the other's wondering ear. When he had finished, Gaultier remained silent a few minutes.

Already the clear radiance of the magnificent light at Calais was sending intermittent flashes of brightness over the deck, and the long shoulder of Cape Grisnez was thrusting the force of the gale back into mid-Channel.

"I think," said Gaultier, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, "that your view is the right one, Mr. Brett. There is much more in this business than meets the eye, and any man who believes that Jack Talbot would mix himself up in it must be a most determined ass. Of course, such people do exist, but they shouldn't be in the police force. You are going on to Paris, you said?"

"Yes."

"Then we can travel together. All that you have said is quite new to me. Curiously enough, I have just returned from Constantinople, and I may be able to assist you."

Brett silently thanked his stars for the gratuitous circumstance which threw him into the company of Captain Gaultier. He recognized that the King's messenger, with the precaution that might be expected from one whose daily life demanded extreme prudence, desired to mentally review the strange facts made known to him before he committed himself further. With ready tact the barrister changed the conversation to matters of the moment until they reached the pier at Calais, when both men, not encumbered with much luggage, were among the first flight of passengers to reach the station buffet.

On their way they captured a railway official and told him to reserve a coupÉ lit compartment. In the midst of their hasty meal the Frenchman arrived, voluble, apologetic. The train was crowded. Never had there been such a rush to the South. By the exercise of most profound care he had secured them two seats in a compartment, but the third had already taken itself. He was sorry for it; he had done his best.

When they entered their carriage the third occupant was in possession. He was French, aggressively so. Phil May might have used him for a model. The poor man had been wretchedly ill from the moment he left Dover until the vessel was tied to her berth in the harbour at Calais. He paid not the least attention to the newcomers, being apparently absorbed in contemplation of his own misery. The two Englishmen, though experienced travellers, were sufficiently insular to resent the presence of the stranger, whom Brett resolved to put to the language test forthwith.

"It is very cold in here," he said. "Shall I turn on the hot air?"

The Frenchman seemed to understand that he was addressed. He looked up with a shivering smile and explained that he had only booked one seat. The remainder of the compartment was at their disposal. He was evidently guiltless of acquaintance with the English tongue, but Brett did not like his appearance.

Though well-dressed and well-spoken he was a nondescript individual, and the flash of his dark eyes was not reassuring. Yet the man was so ill that Brett forthwith dismissed him from his thoughts, though he took care to occupy the centre seat himself, thus placing Captain Gaultier on the other side of the carriage. After a visit from the ticket examiner, the Frenchman disposed himself for a nap and the train started.

Captain Gaultier by this time had made up his mind as to the information he felt he could give his new acquaintance.

"It is very odd," he said, "that those diamonds should disappear just at the moment when there is every sign of unrest in Turkey. You know, of course, the manner of the last Sultan's death?"

Brett nodded.

"And you have heard, no doubt, something of the precautions taken by the present Sultan to safeguard his life against the attacks of possible assassins?"

"Yes," said Brett.

"Well, these have been redoubled of late, and the man never goes out that he is not in the most abject state of fear. He is a pitiful sight, I assure you. I saw him less than a fortnight ago, driving to the Mosque on Friday, and his coachman evidently had orders to go at a gallop through the streets, whilst not only was the entire road protected by soldiers, but every house was examined previously by police agents. There is something in the wind of more than usual importance in the neighbourhood of Yildiz Kiosk just now, I am certain. I suppose you did not chance to see any mention of the fact that Hussein-ul-Mulk, the Sultan's nephew, has recently fled from Turkey, and is now under the protection of the French Government?"

"Yes, I noticed that."

"You don't seem to miss much," was Gaultier's sharp remark, pausing in his narrative to light a cigar.

"One of my few virtues is that I read the newspapers."

The train was slowing down as it neared the town station in Calais, and Gaultier's voice could be momentarily heard above the diminishing rattle.

"Well," he said, "I happen to know Hussein-ul-Mulk, and if we find out where he lives in Paris I will introduce you to him."

Brett looked at the slumbering Frenchman out of the corner of his eye. The man appeared to be dozing peacefully enough, but the alert barrister had an impression that his limbs were not sufficiently relaxed under the influence of slumber. Indeed, he felt sure that the Frenchman was wide awake and endeavouring to catch the drift of their conversation.

"I will be most pleased to meet your friend, Captain Gaultier," he said, "and lest it should slip your memory I will give you a reminder."

He opened his card-case and wrote on the back of a card: "Grand Hotel. Breakfast 11.30. No more at present."

The quick-witted King's messenger read and understood.

"It seems to me," he went on, "that he is the very man for your purpose. Though he is not in favour at Court just now he has plenty of friends in the various departments, and he could give you letters which would be certain to secure you some excellent orders. I suppose you are going to the East as the result of the rumoured intention of the Turkish Government to reconstitute the navy."

Brett made a haphazard guess at Gaultier's meaning.

"Yes," he said, "we ought to place a good many thousand tons with them."

Gaultier leant forward to strike a match and glanced at their companion. For some indescribable reason he shared Brett's views concerning this gentleman, and immediately started a conversation of general significance. They soon discovered that they had several mutual acquaintances, and in this way they passed the dreary journey to Paris pleasantly enough.

At the Gare du Nord, their knowledge of French methods enabled them to get quickly clear of the octroi, as neither of them had any baggage which rendered their presence necessary at the Custom-house. The Frenchman, who seemed to be thoroughly revived by the air of his beloved Paris, hurried out simultaneously with themselves. He had no difficulty in hearing Brett's directions to a cabman. Gaultier entered another vehicle.

Brett was the first away from the station. He fancied he saw his French travelling companion hastily whisper something to a lounger near the exit, so he suddenly pulled up his voiture, gave the driver a two-franc piece and told him to go to the Grand Hotel and there await his arrival. The cab had halted for the moment in the Rue Lafayette, at the corner of the Place Valenciennes, and the cabman, recognizing that his fare was an Englishman and consequently mad, drove off immediately in obedience to orders.

Though nearly six o'clock in the morning, it was quite dark, but as Brett walked rapidly back towards the station he had no difficulty in picking out Gaultier, who occupied an open vehicle. Some little distance behind came another, and herein the barrister thought he recognized the man to whom the Frenchman in the train had spoken. By this time many other cabs were dashing out of the station-yard, so Brett took the chance that he might be hopelessly wrong.

He hailed a third vehicle and told the driver to follow the other two, which were now some distance down the Rue Lafayette. Not until the three cabs had crossed the Place de l'Opera and passed the Madeleine could Brett be certain that the occupant of the second was following his friend Gaultier. Then he chuckled to himself, for this was surely a rare stroke of luck.

Quickly reviewing the possibilities of the affair, he came to the conclusion that the travelling Frenchman really understood little, if any, English, but that he had caught the name of the fugitive from the Sultan's wrath and had forthwith betrayed an interest in their conversation which was, to say the least, remarkable. At the exit from the Gare du Nord the stranger had readily enough ascertained Brett's destination, but he clearly regarded it as important that Gaultier—the man who claimed Hussein-ul-Mulk as a friend—should be tracked, and had given the necessary instructions to the confederate who awaited his arrival.

Although Gaultier had not said as much, Brett guessed that his destination was the British Embassy in the Rue du Faubourg St. HonorÉ. The route followed by the cabman led straight to that well-known locality. The Frenchman in the second cab evidently thought likewise, for, at the corner of the Rue Boissy he pulled up, and Brett was just in time to give his driver instructions to go ahead and thus avoid attracting undue notice to himself.

Gaultier turned into the Embassy, and Brett himself halted a little further on. Dismissing his cocher with a liberal fare, he walked rapidly back, and saw the spy enter into conversation with the night porter on duty. The latter personage, however, was clearly a trustworthy official, for he loudly told the other to be off and attend to his own affairs.

Then followed a most exciting and perplexing chase through many streets, and it was only by the exercise of the utmost discretion that Brett finally located his man at a definite number in the Rue Barbette, a tiny thoroughfare in the Temple district.

By this time dawn was advancing over Paris, and the streets were beginning to fill with early workers. He inquired from a passer-by the most likely locality in which he could find a cab, and the man civilly conducted him to the Rue de Rivoli. Thence he was not long in reaching the Grand Hotel, where he found the astonished cocher of his first vehicle still safeguarding his bag and arguing fiercely with a porter that he had unquestionably obeyed the Englishman's instructions.

Tired though he was, Brett did not fail to scrutinize the list of arrivals at the hotel on the preceding Tuesday. He instantly found the entry he sought. The arrival of "Mr. and Mrs. John Talbot, London," was chronicled in the register with uncompromising boldness. Hastily comparing the writing in Talbot's letter with that of the visitors' book, Brett was at first staggered by their similarity, but he quickly recognized the well-known signs which indicate that a man who himself writes a bold and confident hand has been copying the signature of another with the object of reproducing it freely and with reasonable accuracy. There are always perceptible differences in the varying pressure of the pen and the distribution of the ink.

Allowance had evidently not been made for the fact that Englishmen almost invariably write their names very badly in Continental hotel registers, owing to their inability to use foreign pens. The man who not only forged Mr. Talbot's name, but also supplied him with a wife, laboured under no such disadvantage. Indeed, Talbot himself would probably not have written his own name so legibly.

"That is all right," said Brett wearily, traversing a corridor to gain his room. "Now, I wonder if there is any connexion between Hussein-ul-Mulk and the Rue Barbette."