“This happy event, needless to say, never did occur, though the police made every effort to trace the man who had decoyed Schwarz into the cab.  His appearance was such an uncommon one; it seemed most unlikely that no one in Liverpool should have noticed him after he left that cab.  The wonderful fur coat, the long beard, all must have been noticeable, even though it was past four o’clock on a somewhat foggy December afternoon.

“But every investigation proved futile; no one answering Schwarz’s description of the man had been seen anywhere.  The papers continued to refer to the case as ‘the Liverpool Mystery.’  Scotland Yard sent Mr. Fairburn down—­the celebrated detective—­at the request of the Liverpool police, to help in the investigations, but nothing availed.

“Prince Semionicz, with his suite, left Liverpool, and he who had attempted to blacken his character, and had succeeded in robbing Messrs. Winslow and Vassall of L10,500, had completely disappeared.”

The man in the corner readjusted his collar and necktie, which, during the narrative of this interesting mystery, had worked its way up his long, crane-like neck under his large flappy ears.  His costume of checked tweed of a peculiarly loud pattern had tickled the fancy of some of the waitresses, who were standing gazing at him and giggling in one corner.  This evidently made him nervous.  He gazed up very meekly at Polly, looking for all the world like a bald-headed adjutant dressed for a holiday.

“Of course, all sorts of theories of the theft got about at first.  One of the most popular, and at the same time most quickly exploded, being that young Schwarz had told a cock-and-bull story, and was the actual thief himself.

“However, as I said before, that was very quickly exploded, as Mr. Schwarz senior, a very wealthy merchant, never allowed his son’s carelessness to be a serious loss to his kind employers.  As soon as he thoroughly grasped all the circumstances of the extraordinary case, he drew a cheque for L10,500 and remitted it to Messrs. Winslow and Vassall.  It was just, but it was also high-minded.

“All Liverpool knew of the generous action, as Mr. Winslow took care that it should; and any evil suspicion regarding young Mr. Schwarz vanished as quickly as it had come.

“Then, of course, there was the theory about the Prince and his suite, and to this day I fancy there are plenty of people in Liverpool, and also in London, who declare that the so-called Russian police officer was a confederate.  No doubt that theory was very plausible, and Messrs. Winslow and Vassall spent a good deal of money in trying to prove a case against the Russian Prince.