coat slip off, which it easily did, the sleeves being
new and smoothly silk-lined. The suddenness of the movement threw
me completely off my guard, and off my legs as well. I was clinging
to the coat and holding him. As the support gave way I rolled over
backward, in the mud of the street, and hurt my back seriously. As
for Colonel Clay, with a nervous laugh, he bolted off at full speed
in his evening coat, and vanished round a corner.

It was some seconds before I had sufficiently recovered my breath to
pick myself up again, and examine my bruises. By this time Charles
and the other pursuers had come up, and I explained my condition to
them. Instead of commending me for my zeal in his cause--which had
cost me a barked arm and a good evening suit--my brother-in-law
remarked, with an unfeeling sneer, that when I had so nearly caught
my man I might as well have held him.

"I have his coat, at least," I said. "That may afford us a clue."
And I limped back with it in my hands, feeling horribly bruised and
a good deal shaken.

When we came to examine the coat, however, it bore no maker's name;
the strap at the back, where the tailor proclaims with pride his
handicraft, had been carefully ripped off, and its place was taken
by a tag of plain black tape without inscription of any sort. We
searched the breast-pocket. A handkerchief, similarly nameless,
but of finest cambric. The side-pockets--ha, what was this? I drew
a piece of paper out in triumph. It was a note--a real find--the
one which the servant had handed to our friend just before at the
Senator's.

We read it through breathlessly:--

"DARLING PAUL,--I _told_ you it was too dangerous. You should have
listened to me. You ought _never_ to have imitated any real person. I
happened to glance at the hotel tape just now, to see the quotations
for Cloetedorps to-day, and what do you think I read as part of the
latest telegram from England? 'Mr. Algernon Coleyard, the famous
poet, is lying on his death-bed at his home in Devonshire.' By this
time all New York knows. Don't stop one minute. Say I'm dangerously
ill, and come away at once. Don't return to the hotel. I am removing
our things. Meet me at Mary's. Your devoted, MARGOT."

"This is _very_ important," Charles said. "This _does_ give us a clue.
We know two things now: his real name is Paul--whatever else it may
be, and Madame Picardet's is Margot."

I searched the pocket again, and pulled out a ring. Evidentl