res, and drove off, in two detachments,
to the juge d'instruction. There Colonel Clay continued to brazen
it out, and asserted that he was an officer in the Indian Army, home
on six months' leave, and spending some weeks in Paris. He even
declared he was known at the Embassy, where he had a cousin an
attache; and he asked that this gentleman should be sent for at once
from our Ambassador's to identify him. The juge d'instruction
insisted that this must be done; and Charles waited in very bad
humour for the foolish formality. It really seemed as if, after all,
when we had actually caught and arrested our man, he was going by
some cunning device to escape us.

After a delay of more than an hour, during which Colonel Clay
fretted and fumed quite as much as we did, the attache arrived. To
our horror and astonishment, he proceeded to salute the prisoner
most affectionately.

"Halloa, Algy!" he cried, grasping his hand; "what's up? What do
these ruffians want with you?"

It began to dawn upon us, then, what Medhurst had meant by
"suspecting everybody": the real Colonel Clay was no common
adventurer, but a gentleman of birth and high connections!

The Colonel glared at us. "This fellow declares he's Sir Charles
Vandrift," he said sulkily. "Though, in fact, there are two of them.
And he accuses me of forgery, fraud, and theft, Bertie."

The attache stared hard at us. "This _is_ Sir Charles Vandrift," he
replied, after a moment. "I remember hearing him make a speech once
at a City dinner. And what charge have you to prefer, Sir Charles,
against my cousin?"

"Your cousin?" Charles cried. "This is Colonel Clay, the notorious
sharper!"

The attache smiled a gentlemanly and superior smile. "This is
Colonel Clay," he answered, "of the Bengal Staff Corps."

It began to strike us there was something wrong somewhere.

"But he has cheated me, all the same," Charles said--"at Nice two
years ago, and many times since; and this very day he has tricked me
out of two thousand pounds in French bank-notes, which he has now
about him!"

The Colonel was speechless. But the attache laughed. "What he has
done to-day I don't know," he said; "but if it's as apocryphal as
what you say he did two years ago, you've a thundering bad case,
sir; for he was then in India, and I was out there, visiting him."

"Where are the two thousand pounds?" Charles cried. "Why, you've got
them in your hand! You're holding the envelope!"

The Colonel pro