Part 54

He looked at them critically, first with the naked eye and afterwards by means of a large reading-glass. Then he grunted in dissatisfaction and promised that next day, or the day after, he would tell me the result of his analysis.

As we drove back to the hotel the manager remarked:

"It is a very curious affair, sir, to say the least. One does not scatter carpet pins about a bedroom, and particularly when the points are smeared with some mysterious substance. If they had been there before you retired to bed the chambermaid must certainly have seen them. She makes a round of the rooms each night at ten o'clock. Besides, the facts that the bolt had been tampered with, and also that the man who occupied 175 left so early and so hurriedly, are additionally suspicious. Yes," he added, "I think we ought to see the police."

With that object he took me at once to Señor Andrade, the Chief of Police, a short, stout, alert little man, who heard me with keen interest and seemed very puzzled.

"The intruder's explanation was certainly a very clever one," he remarked in French. "It is a pity you did not demand to see his friend, Pedro Espada. If you had, you would have discovered him to be nonexistent."

"But he was so clever," I answered. "He told me that at that hour he could not discover in which room his friend was really sleeping."

"But the night-porter was on duty," exclaimed the hotel manager. "He had the register and would have been able at once to tell you the number of the room."

The fellow seemed so frank in revealing to me his money, the portraits of his family, and his private letters, that I had taken his statement as the truth.

Yet, even now, I could not believe that he had any sinister design--not until the Professor had examined those three carpet pins.

In response to close questions put to me by Señor Andrade, with whom was Señor Rivero, the head of the Detective Branch, I gave a description of my midnight visitor as accurately as I could. I told them how I had covered him with my automatic pistol, and how afterwards we had laughed together at our mental fear of each other.

Señor Rivero, the bald-headed, black-bearded chief of the branch of criminal investigation, suddenly stopped me when I mentioned the scar upon the neck of the advocate from Burgos.

"Did you notice that there was any deformity of his hands?" he asked quickly.

In an instant I recollected that the little finger of his right hand had been amputated at the first joint, and I told him so.

"Ah!" exclaimed the shrewd, dark-bearded official. "Perhaps we may here find something of interest. Just a few moments," and he rose and left us.

We chatted with Señor Andrade for about a quarter of an hour when the detective returned with a bundle of papers and four photographs of a man taken in police style upon one negative, full face, three-quarter, half and profile.

The instant he placed it before me, I exclaimed:

"Why, that is Salavera!"

"I thought as much," remarked the famous detective with a grim smile. "He is not Salavera, but Rodriquez Despujol, one of the most dangerous criminals in Spain!"

"Despujol!" cried Señor Andrade. "And he was in Madrid last night!" Then he added: "Ah! if we had but known."

"True. But why was he in the English gentleman's room?" queried the detective. "He is a dangerous character, and one would have thought that instead of being covered he would, on being cornered, have drawn his knife and attacked his adversary."

"Despujol is no amateur," the Chief of Police agreed. "We've wanted him for the last five years for the assassination of the banker, Monteros, in the train between Cordova and Malaga, and yet he always evades us, even though he is one of the most audacious thieves in Europe."

"But his friend Pedro?" I remarked, startled at what I had now learned.

"He does not exist," replied the detective. "You no doubt had a lucky escape. Had you demanded to see his friend he would no doubt have killed you. He is a man of colossal strength--a veritable tiger, they say."

"But what was the motive?" I asked. "I have no valuables, save my watch and tie pin, and fifty pounds in English money. Surely it was not worth while to kill me for that!"

"No. That's just it," replied the dark-eyed detective, whose chagrin was so apparent that Despujol had slipped through his fingers. "The game was not worth the candle. So he returned after proving to you his bona fides. And these bona fides he always carries in order to extricate himself from any ugly situation."

"But the carpet pins?" asked the hotel manager.

The director of the Spanish secret police shrugged his shoulders, and said:

"Until Professor Vega can make a report we can do nothing. It is no use basing theories upon mere surmises. So we can only wait for Señor Vega to tell us what he discovers. Meanwhile, we will try and secure Despujol--though I fear he has too long a start of us."