I completed these negotiations by paying down a certain sum and
arranged to garage my cab in the disused stable of a house near my
rooms in Battersea.
Thus I now found myself in a position to appear anywhere at any time
without exciting suspicion, enabled swiftly to proceed from point to
point and to pursue anyone either walking or driving whom it might
please me to pursue. It was a _modus operandi_ which had served me well
in Paris and which had led to one of my biggest successes (the capture
of the French desperado known as "Mr. Q.") in New York.
I had obtained, _via_ Paris, particulars of the recent death of Sir
Frank Narcombe, and the circumstances attendant upon his end were so
similar to those which had characterized the fate of the Grand Duke,
of Van Rembold and the others, that I could not for a moment believe
them to be due to mere coincidence. Acting upon my advice Paris
advised Scotland Yard to press for a _post mortem_ examination of the
body, but the influence of Sir Frank's family was exercised to prevent
this being carried out--and exercised successfully.
Meanwhile, I hovered around the houses, flats, clubs and offices of
everyone who had been associated with the late surgeon, noting to what
addresses they directed me to drive and who lived at those address. In
this way I obtained evidence sufficient to secure three judicial
separations, but not a single clue leading to "The Scorpion"! No
matter.
At every available opportunity I haunted the East-End streets, hoping
for a glimpse of the big car and the brown-skinned chauffeur or of my
scarred man from Paris.
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