"I saw him in the street one day. Lady Fyneshade introduced me. That
is all I knew of him."
The detective, apparently satisfied, did not press his question further;
but a few minutes later, the performance having concluded and the
theatre rapidly emptying, he suggested it was time to go, and outside,
in Leicester Square, we shook hands and parted.
"Good-night," he said heartily, as he turned to leave. "I shall be
astir early to-morrow, and see if I can find the man who has eluded me
to-night."
"Good-night," I laughed. "I shall look for the case in the papers."
Then he buttoned his overcoat and strolled rapidly away along Cranbourne
Street, while I made my way home in the opposite direction, my mind full
of strangely dismal forebodings.
Somehow--I know not by what means--it had been impressed upon me during
the last quarter of an hour I had been with Grindlay, that this shrewd
police officer was not searching for the diamond thief, for, on
reflection, I had a faint suspicion that, as we alighted from the cab
and entered the vestibule, one of the men he suspected had actually
passed us, and that my friend had stared him full in the face. I was
too excited at the prospect of witnessing an arrest in the theatre to
notice the incident at that moment, and, strangely enough, it was only
when walking home absorbed in thought I remembered it.
Why had Grindlay allowed these men to thus slip through his fingers?
No! I felt absolutely convinced that the detective was searching for an
entirely different person. Indeed, the suggestion passed through my
mind, as I recollected his apparently artless questions, that after all
I might be suspected. Perhaps someone had seen me leave Jack's chambers
on that fatal night; perhaps the name upon the warrant, which he refused
to show me, was actually my own.
Again, the discovery of my portrait in that gallery of criminals was
amazing, and seemed to have some hidden connection with the
disappearance of the young millionaire. Perhaps Grindlay had purposely
given me the album to inspect in order to watch how I was affected by
the discovery. In any case, the curious events of that evening had
rendered the problem even more complicated than before.