es.
"_Your_ name, sir?" he inquired.

"You know it very well," Charles answered. "I am Sir Charles
Vandrift; and, in spite of your clever disguise, I can instantly
recognise you. I know your eyes and ears. I can see the same man
who cheated me at Nice, and who insulted me on the island."

"_You_ Sir Charles Vandrift!" the rogue cried. "No, no, sir, you are
a madman!" He looked round at the police. "Take care what you do!"
he cried. "This is a raving maniac. I had business just now with Sir
Charles Vandrift, who quitted the room as these gentlemen entered.
This person is mad, and you, monsieur, I doubt not," bowing to me,
"you are, of course, his keeper."

"Do not let him deceive you," I cried to the police, beginning to
fear that with his usual incredible cleverness the fellow would
even now manage to slip through our fingers. "Arrest him, as you
are told. _We_ will take the responsibility." Though I trembled when
I thought of that cheque he held of mine.

The chief of our three policemen came forward and laid his hand on
the culprit's shoulder. "I advise you, M. le Colonel," he said, in
an official voice, "to come with us quietly for the present. Before
the juge d'instruction we can enter at length into all these
questions."

The Colonel, very indignant still--and acting the part
marvellously--yielded and went along with them.

"Where's Medhurst?" Charles inquired, glancing round as we reached
the door. "I wish he had stopped with us."

"You are looking for monsieur your friend?" the landlord inquired,
with a side bow to the Colonel. "He has gone away in a fiacre. He
asked me to give this note to you."

He handed us a twisted note. Charles opened and read it. "Invaluable
man!" he cried. "Just hear what he says, Sey: 'Having secured
Colonel Clay, I am off now again on the track of Mme. Picardet.
She was lodging in the same house. She has just driven away; I know
to what place; and I am after her to arrest her. In blind haste,
MEDHURST.' That's smartness, IF you like. Though, poor little woman,
I think he might have left her."

"Does a Mme. Picardet stop here?" I inquired of the landlord,
thinking it possible she might have assumed again the same old
alias.

He nodded assent. "Oui, oui, oui," he answered. "She has just driven
off, and monsieur your friend has gone posting after her."

"Splendid man!" Charles cried. "Marvillier was quite right. He is
the prince of detectives!"

We hailed a couple of fiac