carefully and closely watched. And the very day after I found and took
possession of the jewels we received a report from this agent that Van
Koon was in the habit of visiting the shop and manufactory of a German
chemist named Schmall, in Whitechapel. Further, he had twice come away
from it, after lengthy visits, in company with a man whom the agent's
employees had tracked to the Hotel Cecil, and whom I knew, from their
description, to be Mr. Merrifield, Mr. Delkin's private secretary.

"Naturally, having discovered this, we gave instructions for a keener
watch than ever to be kept on both these men. But the name of the German
chemist gave me personally a new and most important clue. There had been
employed at the Waldorf Hotel, for some weeks up to the end of the first
week in May, a German-Swiss young man, who then called himself Ebers. He
acted as valet to several residents; amongst others, Mr. Fullaway. He was
often in and out of Mr. Fullaway's rooms. Once, Mr. Fullaway being out,
and I having nothing to do, I was cleaning up some photographic apparatus
which I had there. This man Ebers came in with some clothes of Mr.
Fullaway's. Seeing what I was doing, he got talking to me about
photography, saying that he himself was an amateur. He recommended to me
certain materials and things of that sort which he said he could get from
a friend of his, a chemist, who was an enthusiastic photographer and
manufactured chemicals and things used in photography. I gave him some
money to get me a supply of things, and he brought various packets and
parcels to me two or three days later. Each packet bore the name of Otto
Schmall, and an address in a street which runs off Mile End Road.

"Now, when the private inquiry agent made his reports to Mr. Rayner and
myself about Van Koon, and told us where he had been tracked to more than
once, I, of course, remembered the name of Schmall, and Mr. Rayner and I
began to put certain facts together. They were these: