'
Once or twice at the beginning he shook his massive head, and replied
the secret was not his. The last time he did this I assured him that
what he said was quite correct, and then I related full particulars of
the situation in which he found himself, excepting the names, for
these he had not mentioned. I had pieced together his perplexity from
scraps of conversation in his half-hour's fishing for my advice,
which, of course, he could have had for the plain asking. Since that
time he has not come to me except with cases he feels at liberty to
reveal, and one or two complications I have happily been enabled to
unravel for him.
But, staunch as Spenser Hale holds the belief that no detective
service on earth can excel that centring in Scotland Yard, there is
one department of activity in which even he confesses that Frenchmen
are his masters, although he somewhat grudgingly qualifies his
admission by adding that we in France are constantly allowed to do
what is prohibited in England. I refer to the minute search of a house
during the owner's absence. If you read that excellent story, entitled
_The Purloined Letter_, by Edgar Allan Poe, you will find a record of
the kind of thing I mean, which is better than any description I, who
have so often taken part in such a search, can set down.
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