inent, at the same time that he sold the diamonds. That which
he obtained afterwards was found intact in the safe in his bedroom.
Heavens! What an opportunity I missed by not taking out a search-warrant
for his house. When we paid our midnight visit, there must have been
ample evidence behind the steel door to have convicted him."

The detective was silent for awhile, and bit savagely at his cigar.

"He was not a wealthy man, then," I remarked.

"No," replied Forrest. "There was no trace of his owning any property
anywhere, and his expenditure on the gas plant and on his motors--we
found that the various parts had been made to specification at a variety
of works in England and abroad--had eaten heavily into his capital, so
that at the time of the commencement of his career he must have been
very nearly penniless. Whether he built the motor with the idea of
utilizing it for the purpose he ultimately put it to, of course I cannot
say, but I have a shrewd suspicion that he really did design it for the
purpose, since from what I have learned of him the predatory instinct
must have been pretty strongly developed in him."

The detective paused for a minute, and, flicking the ash off his cigar,
gazed meditatively into the fire.

"You shall judge for yourselves," he continued. "Unfortunately, I cannot
begin right at the beginning, for I do not know where he was born, nor
who his parents were. I can only guess at these facts from the knowledge
that, as a boy, he was at school in the south of England, and that then
his name was Ram Krishna Roy."

"What?" I asked, in amazement. "A Hindu?"

"An Eurasian, I should fancy," replied Forrest. "He had been sent to
school in England by one of those petty Indian princes, who still
exercise sovereignty under British suzerainty."

"How did you discover that?" asked Evie.

"It was like this, Mrs. Sutgrove," replied Forrest. "Amongst the papers
I spoke about as being in the old portmanteau, were a number of letters
written in characters I could not understand. I could see they were
oriental, and that was as much as I could make of them, so I took them
to a noted oriental scholar who translated them for me. The language was
Urdu, and the writer was a munshi, who was obviously communicating with
an old pupil. There were so many references to scenes with which the
person to whom the letters were addressed, as well as the writer, was
familiar, that it was quite clear that the former must