dhurst. Yet see how
truthful I was! I told you I knew where Colonel Clay was
living--and I _did_ know, exactly. I promised to take you to
Colonel Clay's rooms, and to get him arrested for you--and
I kept my promise. I even exceeded your expectations; for
I gave you _two_ Colonel Clays instead of one--and you took
the wrong man--that is to say, the real one. This was a neat
little trick; but it cost me some trouble.

"First, I found out there _was_ a real Colonel Clay, in the
Indian Army. I also found out he chanced to be coming home on
leave this season. I might have made more out of him, no doubt;
but I disliked annoying him, and preferred to give myself the
fun of this peculiar mystification. I therefore waited for him
to reach Paris, where the police arrangements suited me better
than in London. While I was looking about, and delaying
operations for his return, I happened to hear you wanted a
detective. So I offered myself as out of work to my old
employer, Marvillier, from whom I have had many good jobs in the
past; and there you get, in short, the kernel of the Colonel.

"Naturally, after this, I can never go back as a detective
to Marvillier's. But, on the large scale on which I have
learned to work since I first had the pleasure of making
your delightful acquaintance, this matters little. To say
the truth, I begin to feel detective work a cut or two below
me. I am now a gentleman of means and leisure. Besides, the
extra knowledge of your movements which I have acquired in
your house has helped still further to give me various holds
upon you. So the fluke will be true to his own pet lamb. To
vary the metaphor, you are not fully shorn yet.

"Remember me most kindly to your charming family, give
Wentworth my love, and tell Mlle. Cesarine I owe her a grudge
which I shall never forget. She clearly suspected me. You are
much too rich, dear Charles; I relieve your plethora. I bleed
you financially. Therefore I consider myself--Your sincerest
friend,

"CLAY-BRABAZON-MEDHURST,

"Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons."

Charles was threatened with apoplexy. This blow was severe.
"Whom can I trust," he asked, plaintively, "when the detectives
themselves, whom I employ to guard me, turn out to be swindlers?
Don't you remember that line in the Latin grammar--something about,
'Who shall watch the watchers?' I think it used to run, 'Quis
custodes custodiet ipsos?'"

But I felt this episode had at least disprove