d
there could be none of that in connection with the Montalais affair
until either Andre Duchemin had been arrested or the jewels recovered
from the real thief or thieves. And Lanyard was human enough to be
almost as willing to have the first happen as the last, if it were not
given to him to be the prime factor in their restoration.

For the time being--if he must confess the truth--he was actually
rather enjoying himself, rather exhilarated than otherwise by the
swiftly shifting scenes and characters of his unfolding investigations
and by the brisk sword-play of wits in which he was called upon
constantly to engage; both essential ingredients of the wine of life
according to the one recipe he knew.

And then a review of recent events seemed to warrant the belief that,
all things considered, he had thus far made fair progress toward his
goal.

While it was true he did not as yet know what had become of the
Montalais jewels, he had gathered together an accumulation of evidence
which, however circumstantial and hypothetical, established acceptably
to his intelligence a number of interesting inferences, to wit:

That Dupont had not left the neighbourhood of the Chateau de Montalais,
after haunting it for upwards of a month, without definite knowledge
that he would gain nothing by staying on, or without an equally
definite objective, some motive more inspiring than such simple
sensuousness as he might find in assassinating inoffensive folk
indiscriminately.

That his attempt upon the life of Liane Delorme within twenty-four
hours of the murder of de Lorgnes indicated conviction on his part that
the two were coupled in some enterprise inimical to his personal
interests.

That in spite of his mask of a stupid pig Dumont was proving himself
mentally as well as physically an adversary worthy of all respect, and
was--what was worse--still to be reckoned with.

That, as Lanyard had suspected all along, the Monk party had been
visited upon the Chateau de Montalais through no vagary of chance
whatever but as part of a deliberate design whose ulterior motive had
transpired only with the disappearance of the jewels--to Dupont's vast
but understandable vexation of spirit.

That the several members of the Monk party had been working in entire
accord, as a close corporation; in which case the person whom the Comte
de Lorgnes had expected to meet in Lyons must have been Monk Phinuit or
Jules.

Consequently that at least one