there, becoming indignant, and assisting the
police, we were compelled to fly, thus giving the whole game away. If we
had stayed, Gilling would have recognised us. By Jove! I never had such
a tough quarter of an hour in all my life. Blythe has gone up to
Scotland, and we shall ship the car across to Hamburg by to-night's boat
from Parkeston. You've got those books all right? Don't lose them."

"I've left them in the car," I replied.

"Left them in the car!" he cried, glaring at me. "Are you mad?"

"Mad! Why?"

"Go and get them at once and lock them up in your bag. I'll show you
something when we get an opportunity."

The opportunity came three days later, when we were alone together in a
room in Hoefer's Hotel, in the Bahnhofs-Platz, in Hamburg. He took the
books from me, undid the buckle, and, to my surprise, showed me that the
centres of the popular books had been cleverly cut out, so that they
were literally boxes formed by the paper leaves. And each book was
filled with splendid jewels!

The haul was a huge one, for several of the diamond ornaments which had
been taken from the Chameleon's safe were of great value. The old lady
was passionately fond of jewellery, and spent huge sums with Mr.
Gilling. We afterwards discovered that several of the finest pieces we
had taken had actually been sent to her on approval by Gilling, so,
curiously enough, we had touched his property on a second occasion.

"It was a difficult affair," Bindo declared. "I had to pretend to make
love to Medhurst, or I should never have been able to get a cast of the
safe-key. However, we've been able to take the best of the old lady's
collection, and they'll fetch a good price in Amsterdam, or I'm a
Dutchman myself. Of course, there's a big hue-and-cry after us, so we
must lie very low over here for a bit. Fancy your leaving those novels
kicking about in the car! Somebody might have wanted to read them!"

CHAPTER VI

THE GENTLEMAN FROM LONDON

Months had passed since the affair of the six new novels.

In Hamburg Bindo had left me and gone to see the old Jew in Amsterdam,
while I had driven the "forty" south through Lueneburg, Brunswick, and
Nordhausen to Erfurt, where, passing as an English gentleman of means, I
remained for three weeks at a very comfortable hotel, afterwards moving
on to Dresden.

At regular intervals the Count sent me money, but he was, as usual,
travelling constantly. I wrote to him to a newspaper-shop i