It was the simplest thing in the world. Liberty of the
subject is the first great rule with the English people, and thus many
a criminal is allowed to escape. Here was I laying plans for the
contravening of this first great rule, and to do so I took advantage
of the second great rule of the English people, which is, that
property is sacred. I told the building authorities I was a rich man
with a great distrust of banks, and I wished to build in my flat a
safe or strong-room in which to deposit my valuables. I built then
such a room as may be found in every bank, and many private premises
of the City, and a tenant might have lived in my flat for a year and
never suspected the existence of this prison. A railway engine might
have screeched its whistle within it, and not a sound would have
penetrated the apartments that surrounded it unless the door were
open.
But besides M. Eugene Valmont, dressed in elegant attire as if he were
still a boulevardier of Paris, occupier of the top floor in the
Imperial Flats, there was another Frenchman in London to whom I must
introduce you, namely, Professor Paul Ducharme, who occupied a squalid
back room in the cheapest and most undesirable quarter of Soho.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67