e tip of my tongue to reveal the suspicions I had
of the great financier, but I refrained, because I could see that my
companion held De Gex in high esteem as a friend and financial
mainstay of his country.

A few moments later I reverted to the possibility of the arrest of
Despujol, for if arrested he might betray De Gex as the person who had
paid him to place those infected pins in my room. In such case my
story would be heard and investigated.

But the Chief of Police shook his head dubiously.

"I fear that he has again gone into safe hiding--up in the mountains
somewhere, without a doubt," he replied. "It was an act of
considerable daring to come boldly to Madrid and stay at your hotel
when he knows full well the hue-and-cry for him is raised everywhere,
and that there is actually ten thousand pesetas offered as reward for
his capture."

"Someone may betray him," I suggested with a smile.

"Yes. We hope so. One of his friends, male or female, will no doubt do
so and come one day to us for the reward. Not till then shall we know
the truth of that strange attempt upon your life. The motive could not
have been robbery, as you had nothing worth taking save your watch. If
he had been found in De Gex's room at the Ritz one could have
understood it."

I smiled. The Chief of Police never suspected the true facts of the
case, facts within my own knowledge, which were of such an amazing and
startling character that I hesitated to relate them.

When I left my friend I again sought Hambledon and told him all I had
learnt.

"H'm!" he grunted. "Very wily of De Gex to get the police to keep an
eye upon me. If I'm not careful I shall suddenly find myself under
arrest as a suspicious person who is in the habit of loitering in the
vicinity of the great financier."

"Yes," I agreed. "This seems to put an end to our present
activity--does it not?"

"Well, he apparently knows that we are watching," Hambledon said.
"What a pity we cannot tell the police all we know."

"If we did we should not be believed, and, moreover, they wouldn't
hear a word against the great man who is such a friend to Spain. Money
buys reputation, remember. Nobody knows that better than De Gex."

Hambledon was standing at my bedroom window looking thoughtfully down
upon the Puerta del Sol with its crowd of hurrying foot-passengers.

"It seems a miserable ending to all our careful surveillance upon
Suzor--doesn't it?" he grumbled.

"True, it does.