diary, hence he was gradually working up
quite a lucrative practice.

Things drifted along till the end of October. De Gex was living at
Stretton Street, very occupied, I ascertained, in arranging a great
development scheme for Liberia, that independent State in West Africa.

In the City he was constantly expressing his regret at the unfortunate
deaths of his partners, Count de Chamartin, of Madrid, and the Baron
van Veltrup, of Amsterdam, but he had expressed himself ready to carry
the great deal through himself, though it involved the speculation of
nearly two millions sterling.

I could hardly take up any newspaper--neither could you, my reader,
for that matter--unless I saw De Gex referred to, under another name,
of course. He went here and there, the guest of a Cabinet Minister,
playing golf with a Leader of the House, or spending a week-end with a
Duke, until it seemed that the world of Society had at last prevailed
upon the mystery-man of millions to emerge from his shell and take up
his position in Mayfair.

When I saw that he was the guest of certain hard-up members of the
aristocracy, or of war profiteers, who, dropping their aitches, had
bought ancestral homes, I merely smiled at the ignorance of those who
were entertaining one of the greatest criminals in Europe.

In the watch I kept each evening upon the house in Stretton Street my
friend Harry Hambledon assisted me. As we lurked in doorways in the
vicinity, we saw the great ones of London Society, of both sexes,
going and coming, for Oswald De Gex had now commenced to entertain
upon a lavish scale. He gave smart dinner-parties and musical
evenings, which the most exclusive set enjoyed.

One night, after it had grown dark, I sauntered along Park Lane, as
was my habit, and having turned into Stretton Street noticed a rather
shabbily dressed man, evidently a foreigner, descending the steps from
De Gex's door. He turned in my direction, and we came face to face.

In an instant I recognized him as the Spaniard, Mateo Sanz! He had
never seen me before, therefore, when at a respectable distance, I
turned and followed him along to a street off the Edgware Road, where
he entered a third-class private hotel.

What, I wondered, was his object in visiting De Gex unless some other
plot was in progress? I, however, did not intend, now that I knew the
truth concerning the death of the Baron in Amsterdam, that the
assassin should escape. Hence I took a taxi to Sc