"'Even before St. Albans, I noted your extraordinary actions in the cathedral cities, and, though I suspected its true explanation, I saw how extraordinarily useful you might become to me. Therefore, I was careful to collect the different dividends of my tour only when you were conspicuously about, and let the logic of events take care of themselves.
"'When you joined with me at St. Albans, of course, it mightily simplified matters. And when I saw that you seemed to positively delight in the excitement of being suspected, I wrote the letter to the News at Ely, suggesting to the paper and to the police the simple theory of the thefts which they so thoroughly adopted. You will remember that my communication convinced them that an American was the fellow doing the robbing. So, when they wired about for confirmation of that theory, from every town where the thefts occurred, your name was immediately wired back. I, being an Englishman, was not noted in this connection.
334