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Graham, whom I had known for a number of years, looked very straight at me. "What is the nature of this exclusive information?" he inquired. "You are concealing something, Hugh." "Yes. I know I am," was my reply as I smiled at him. "I am here to discover the truth regarding the death of Baron van Veltrup." "Then you suspect foul play eh?" asked my friend.
"Even then you were half inclined to disbelieve it. Now you know the truth. The two business partners of Oswald De Gex, the Conde de Chamartin, of Madrid, and the Baron van Veltrup, of Amsterdam, have both died suddenly and at the instigation of their unsuspected friend! It has been proved that Sanz introduced the tiny scrap of infected razor-blade into the Baron's glove."
I happened to know an Englishman employed as clerk to a firm of Dutch forwarding agents whose offices were in the Dam, and this man, whose name was Graham, I at once sought. We went out to a café together, and I explained the object of my visit, namely, the investigation of the death of Baron van Veltrup.
And your great financier Baron van Veltrup has died by the hand of one who has wilfully administered it!" "Well," said the stolid man with the scraggy beard, rather reluctantly, "I confess that this has come to me as a perfect revelation." "You have only to order the exhumation of the Baron's body, and an examination of the left hand, to be convinced that what this Englishman, Mr.
"And you went to The Hague and there met the Baron van Veltrup. You put that little piece of steel into his glove. I know that you did," Rivero went on relentlessly. "Yes. De Gex paid me for it," was his reply. "As he paid Despujol eh?" "Yes." "Very well," replied Rivero. "I will note your replies. De Gex is expecting you to call upon him to-day, is he not?" "Yes. At one o'clock.
"Three doctors have, however, declared that death ensued from natural causes, hence the police discredit the valet's story. Baron van Veltrup, who was well known in international finance, was a frequent visitor to London, where he had permanent chambers in Jermyn Street.
Anyone inserting a finger into the glove would certainly be cut by the razor edge of that sharp scrap of steel. As it lay upon the polished oak I bent to look at it, the valet also standing near and bending down in curiosity. Upon it something had apparently been smeared some colourless jelly, it seemed. Had Baron van Veltrup fallen victim to orosin, wilfully administered?
I was now out to obtain direct and undeniable evidence of his crimes. Yet up to the present I could not go much further than mere surmise. Two of his business friends, Count Chamartin and Baron van Veltrup, had died quite suddenly. In the case of the latter, the valet expressed a positive belief that his master had not died of natural causes.
"According to the Baron's servant the visitor was left alone for a few moments in the room where van Veltrup had put down his gloves in order to go out and speak to his valet, who on that day was acting as his chauffeur. It was in those moments of his absence that the unknown visitor put the infected scrap of steel into the Baron's glove."
In the City he was constantly expressing his regret at the unfortunate deaths of his partners, Count de Chamartin, of Madrid, and the Baron van Veltrup, of Amsterdam, but he had expressed himself ready to carry the great deal through himself, though it involved the speculation of nearly two millions sterling.
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