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Updated: June 27, 2025
To my amazement Señor Rivero heard me unmoved. "I was awaiting you," he said. "The man you have been watching is not Despujol at all. Despujol, whom I recognized, passed out a few moments ago and took a cab to his house in the Rue de Lalande." "Then you have seen him!" I gasped. "Yes. It is Rodriquez Despujol, without a doubt, Monsieur Garfield.
"I have only just returned from several weeks abroad, during which I have gained considerable knowledge which in the end will, I hope, lead me to the solution of the problem." I then told her of my journey to Spain and afterwards to Nîmes. But I mentioned nothing concerning either Oswald De Gex or Despujol. At that moment Gabrielle, unaware of my presence, entered.
I strove to get sufficiently near to look well into his face, but I feared recognition. Would he pass out of the exit where the famous Spanish detective was awaiting him? Rivero knew Despujol by photographs, and indeed had been present when he had been convicted on the last occasion a few years before. Mademoiselle's friend hesitated for some moments, and then accosting a porter asked a question.
This was supported by the fact that the Baron received a mysterious visitor at an obscure hotel at The Hague, a man who was apparently disguised by big horn spectacles, and was certainly not a Dutchman. And above all that, I held most conclusive evidence that both De Gex himself and the dead bandit, Despujol, had used that deadly drug orosin to secure their nefarious ends.
I declared, for I was still no nearer the truth. I had been back in London a little over a week when I read in the paper one morning a paragraph which possessed for me a peculiar interest. It ran as follows: "The notorious Spanish bandit Rodriquez Despujol, who has for several years terrorized Murcia and Andalusia and has committed several murders, is dead.
You know the motive, and yet you will not disclose it to me." "Not at present," I said. "If it is found that Charles Rabel is really Despujol, then I will come forward and state all that I know." "You promise that?" "I do." "Very well then I will give orders to have your suspicions investigated," replied the patient, urbane official.
Upon the arrival of the steamer in Barcelona the prisoner was transferred to Montjuich Castle, a political prison associated with many cruelties, there to await the sailing that very day of the Philippine mail boat. The Captain-General was the same Despujol who had decoyed Rizal into the power of the Spaniards four years before.
Early in the morning we alighted at the station, high upon a viaduct, after a sleepless night, and drove to a small commercial hotel, the Cheval Blanc, in the Place des Arènes, nearly opposite the Luxembourg where the mystery-man of Europe had appointed to meet the infamous Despujol. When I inquired for a telegram one was handed to me.
The Commissary pressed an electric button, whereupon his secretary appeared. In a few rapid sentences the tall, elegant French official gave orders, and the secretary retired at once to execute them. "Despujol is a desperate character. He is always armed, and possesses abnormal strength. He could strangle his strongest opponent," Rivero remarked.
"I said that I would lead you to the secret abode of Despujol, and I think I have now fulfilled my promise, and shown you that he is on friendly terms with the great financier whom you in Spain all hold in such high esteem." "There is certainly no man more welcome in Madrid than Señor De Gex," replied the police official.
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