Tresham is already there. I had a letter from him from
the Palace Hotel yesterday."

"I will recall him by wire to-morrow. Our plans are complete. The
Marquis's picture will still hang in his house until we are ready for
it. It is the best specimen of Antonio del Rincon, and will fetch a big
price in New York--when we have time to go and get it," he laughed.

"Is Franklyn to help the Maxwell woman again?" asked Mr. Howell, who was
known as an expert valuer of antiques and articles of worth, and who had
an office in St. James's. He only dealt in collectors' pieces, and
in the trade bore an unblemished reputation, on account of his expert
knowledge and his sound financial condition. He bought old masters
and pieces of antique silver now and then, but none suspected that the
genuine purchases at big prices were only made in order to blind his
friends as to the actual nature of his business.

Indeed, to his office came many an art gem stolen from its owner on the
Continent and smuggled over by devious ways known only to The Sparrow
and his associates. And just as ingeniously the stolen property was sent
across to America, so well camouflaged that the United States Customs
officers were deceived. With pictures it was their usual method to
coat the genuine picture with a certain varnish, over which one of the
organization, an old artist living in Chelsea, would paint a modern and
quite passable picture and add a new canvas back.

Then, on its arrival in America, the new picture was easily cleaned
off, the back removed, and lo! it was an old master once more ready for
purchase at a high price by American collectors.

Truly, the gloved hand of The Sparrow was a master hand. He had brought
well-financed and well-organized theft to a fine art. His "indicators,"
both male and female, were everywhere, and cosmopolitan as he was
himself, and a wealthy man, he was able to direct--and finance--all
sorts of coups, from a barefaced jewel theft to the forgery of American
banknotes.

And yet, so strange and mysterious a personality was he that not twenty
persons in the whole criminal world had ever met him in the flesh. The
tall, good-looking man whom Dorise knew as the White Cavalier was one of
four other men who posed in his stead when occasion arose.

Scotland Yard, the Surete in Paris, the Pubblica Sicurezza in Rome, and
the Detective Department of the New York police knew, quite naturally,
of the existence of the elusive Sparr