An African Millionaire Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay

VII

THE EPISODE OF THE AR­REST OF THE COLONEL

How much pre­cise­ly Charles dropped over the slump in Cloete­dorps I nev­er quite knew. But the in­ci­dent left him de­ject­ed, limp, and dispir­it­ed.

“Hang it all, Sey,” he said to me in the smok­ing-​room, a few evenings lat­er. “This Colonel Clay is enough to vex the pa­tience of Job–and Job had large loss­es, too, if I rec­ol­lect aright, from the Chaldeans and oth­er big op­er­ators of the pe­ri­od.”

“Three thou­sand camels,” I mur­mured, re­call­ing my dear moth­er’s lessons; “all at one fell swoop; not to men­tion five hun­dred yoke of ox­en, car­ried off by the Sabeans, then a lead­ing firm of spec­ula­tive cat­tle-​deal­ers!”

“Ah, well,” Charles med­itat­ed aloud, shak­ing the ash from his che­root in­to a Japanese tray–fine an­tique bronze-​work. “There were big trans­ac­tions in live-​stock even then! Still, Job or no Job, the man is too much for me.”

“The dif­fi­cul­ty is,” I as­sent­ed, “you nev­er know where to have him.”

“Yes,” Charles mused; “if he were al­ways the same, like Horn­iman’s tea or a good brand of whisky, it would be eas­ier, of course; you’d stand some chance of spot­ting him. But when a man turns up smil­ing ev­ery time in a dif­fer­ent dis­guise, which fits him like a skin, and al­ways ap­par­ent­ly with the best cre­den­tials, why, hang it all, Sey, there’s no wrestling with him any­how.”

“Who could have come to us, for ex­am­ple, bet­ter vouched,” I ac­qui­esced, “than the Hon­ourable David?”

“Ex­act­ly so,” Charles mur­mured. “I in­vit­ed him my­self, for my own ad­van­tage. And he ar­rived with all the pres­tige of the Glen-​El­lachie con­nec­tion.”

“Or the Pro­fes­sor?” I went on. “In­tro­duced to us by the lead­ing min­er­al­ogist of Eng­land.”

I had touched a sore point. Charles winced and re­mained silent.

“Then, wom­en again,” he re­sumed, af­ter a painful pause. “I must meet in so­ci­ety many charm­ing wom­en. I can’t ev­ery­where and al­ways be on my guard against ev­ery dear soul of them. Yet the mo­ment I re­lax my at­ten­tion for one day–or even when I don’t re­lax it–I am bam­boo­zled and led a dance by that arch Mme. Pi­cardet, or that trans­par­ent­ly sim­ple lit­tle minx, Mrs. Granton. She’s the clever­est girl I ev­er met in my life, that hussy, what­ev­er we’re to call her. She’s a dif­fer­ent per­son each time; and each time, hang it all, I lose my heart afresh to that dif­fer­ent per­son.”

I glanced round to make sure Amelia was well out of earshot.

“No, Sey,” my re­spect­ed con­nec­tion went on, af­ter an­oth­er long pause, sip­ping his cof­fee pen­sive­ly, “I feel I must be aid­ed in this su­per­hu­man task by a pro­fes­sion­al un­rav­eller of cun­ning dis­guis­es. I shall go to Mar­vil­li­er’s to-​mor­row–for­tu­nate man, Mar­vil­li­er–and ask him to sup­ply me with a re­al­ly good ‘tec, who will stop in the house and keep an eye up­on ev­ery liv­ing soul that comes near me. He shall scan each nose, each eye, each wig, each whisker. He shall be my watch­ful half, my un­sleep­ing self; it shall be his busi­ness to sus­pect all liv­ing men, all breath­ing wom­en. The Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury shall not es­cape for a mo­ment his watch­ful re­gard; he will take care that roy­al princess­es don’t col­lar the spoons or walk off with the jew­el-​cas­es. He must see pos­si­ble Colonel Clays in the guard of ev­ery train and the par­son of ev­ery parish; he must de­tect the off-​chance of a Mme. Pi­cardet in ev­ery young girl that takes tea with Amelia, ev­ery fat old la­dy that comes to call up­on Is­abel. Yes, I have made my mind up. I shall go to-​mor­row and se­cure such a man at once at Mar­vil­li­er’s.”

“If you please, Sir Charles,” Césarine in­ter­posed, push­ing her head through the por­tière, “her la­dy­ship says, will you and Mr. Went­worth re­mem­ber that she goes out with you both this evening to La­dy Caris­brooke’s?”

“Bless my soul,” Charles cried, “so she does! And it’s now past ten! The car­riage will be at the door for us in an­oth­er five min­utes!”

Next morn­ing, ac­cord­ing­ly, Charles drove round to Mar­vil­li­er’s. The fa­mous de­tec­tive lis­tened to his sto­ry with glis­ten­ing eyes; then he rubbed his hands and purred. “Colonel Clay!” he said; “Colonel Clay! That’s a very tough cus­tomer! The po­lice of Eu­rope are on the look-​out for Colonel Clay. He is want­ed in Lon­don, in Paris, in Berlin. It is le Colonel Caoutchouc here, le Colonel Caoutchouc there; till one be­gins to ask, at last, IS there _any_ Colonel Caoutchouc, or is it a con­ve­nient class name in­vent­ed by the Force to cov­er a gang of undis­cov­ered sharpers? How­ev­er, Sir Charles, we will do our best. I will set on the track with­out de­lay the best and clever­est de­tec­tive in Eng­land.”

“The very man I want,” Charles said. “What name, Mar­vil­li­er?”

The prin­ci­pal smiled. “What­ev­er name you like,” he said. “He isn’t par­tic­ular. Med­hurst he’s called at home. _We_ call him Joe. I’ll send him round to your house this af­ter­noon for cer­tain.”

“Oh no,” Charles said prompt­ly, “you won’t; or Colonel Clay him­self will come in­stead of him. I’ve been sold too of­ten. No ca­su­al strangers! I’ll wait here and see him.”

“But he isn’t in,” Mar­vil­li­er ob­ject­ed.

Charles was firm as a rock. “Then send and fetch him.”

In half an hour, sure enough, the de­tec­tive ar­rived. He was an odd-​look­ing small man, with hair cut short and stand­ing straight up all over his head, like a Parisian wait­er. He had quick, sharp eyes, very much like a fer­ret’s; his nose was de­pressed, his lips thin and blood­less. A scar marked his left cheek–made by a sword-​cut, he said, when en­gaged one day in ar­rest­ing a des­per­ate French smug­gler, dis­guised as an of­fi­cer of Chas­seurs d’Afrique. His mien was res­olute. Al­to­geth­er, a quain­ter or ‘cuter lit­tle man it has nev­er yet been my lot to set eyes on. He walked in with a brisk step, eyed Charles up and down, and then, with­out much for­mal­ity, asked for what he was want­ed.

“This is Sir Charles Van­drift, the great di­amond king,” Mar­vil­li­er said, in­tro­duc­ing us.

“So I see,” the man an­swered.

“Then you know me?” Charles asked.

“I wouldn’t be worth much,” the de­tec­tive replied, “if I didn’t know ev­ery­body. And you’re easy enough to know; why, ev­ery boy in the street knows you.”

“Plain spo­ken!” Charles re­marked.

“As you like it, sir,” the man an­swered in a re­spect­ful tone. “I en­deav­our to suit my dress and be­haviour on ev­ery oc­ca­sion to the taste of my em­ploy­ers.”

“Your name?” Charles asked, smil­ing.

“Joseph Med­hurst, at your ser­vice. What sort of work? Stolen di­amonds? Il­lic­it di­amond-​buy­ing?”

“No,” Charles an­swered, fix­ing him with his eye. “Quite an­oth­er kind of job. You’ve heard of Colonel Clay?”

Med­hurst nod­ded. “Why, cer­tain­ly,” he said; and, for the first time, I de­tect­ed a lin­ger­ing trace of Amer­ican ac­cent. “It’s my busi­ness to know about him.”

“Well, I want you to catch him,” Charles went on.

Med­hurst drew a long breath. “Isn’t that rather a large or­der?” he mur­mured, sur­prised.

Charles ex­plained to him ex­act­ly the sort of ser­vices he re­quired. Med­hurst promised to com­ply. “If the man comes near you, I’ll spot him,” he said, af­ter a mo­ment’s pause. “I can promise you that much. I’ll pierce any dis­guise. I should know in a minute whether he’s got up or not. I’m death on wigs, false mous­tach­es, ar­ti­fi­cial com­plex­ions. I’ll en­gage to bring the rogue to book if I see him. You may set your mind at rest, that, while _I’m_ about you, Colonel Clay can do noth­ing with­out my in­stant­ly spot­ting him.”

“He’ll do it,” Mar­vil­li­er put in. “He’ll do it, if he says it. He’s my very best hand. Nev­er knew any man like him for un­rav­el­ling and un­mask­ing the clever­est dis­guis­es.”

“Then he’ll suit me,” Charles an­swered, “for _I_ nev­er knew any man like Colonel Clay for as­sum­ing and main­tain­ing them.”

It was ar­ranged ac­cord­ing­ly that Med­hurst should take up his res­idence in the house for the present, and should be de­scribed to the ser­vants as as­sis­tant sec­re­tary. He came that very day, with a mar­vel­lous­ly small port­man­teau. But from the mo­ment he ar­rived, we no­ticed that Césarine took a vi­olent dis­like to him.

Med­hurst was a most ef­fi­cient de­tec­tive. Charles and I told him all we knew about the var­ious shapes in which Colonel Clay had “ma­te­ri­alised,” and he gave us in turn many valu­able crit­icisms and sug­ges­tions. Why, when we be­gan to sus­pect the Hon­ourable David Granton, had we not, as if by ac­ci­dent, tried to knock his red wig off? Why, when the Rev­erend Richard Pe­ploe Brabazon first dis­cussed the ques­tion of the paste di­amonds, had we not looked to see if any of Amelia’s unique gems were miss­ing? Why, when Pro­fes­sor Schleier­ma­ch­er made his bow to as­sem­bled sci­ence at Lan­cast­er Gate, had we not strict­ly in­quired how far he was per­son­al­ly known be­fore­hand to Sir Adol­phus Cordery and the oth­er min­er­al­ogists? He sup­plied us al­so with sev­er­al good hints about false hair and make-​up; such as that Schleier­ma­ch­er was prob­ably much short­er than he looked, but by im­itat­ing a stoop with padding at his back he had pro­duced the il­lu­sion of a tall bent man, though in re­al­ity no big­ger than the lit­tle cu­rate or the Graf von Leben­stein. High heels did the rest; while the sci­en­tif­ic keen­ness we not­ed in his face was doubt­less brought about by a tri­fle of wax at the end of the nose, giv­ing a pe­cu­liar tilt that is ex­treme­ly ef­fec­tive. In short, I must frankly ad­mit, Med­hurst made us feel ashamed of our­selves. Sharp as Charles is, we re­alised at once he was nowhere in ob­ser­va­tion be­side the trained and ex­pe­ri­enced sens­es of this pro­fes­sion­al de­tec­tive.

The worst of it all was, while Med­hurst was with us, by some cu­ri­ous fa­tal­ity, Colonel Clay stopped away from us. Now and again, to be sure, we ran up against some­body whom Med­hurst sus­pect­ed; but af­ter a short in­ves­ti­ga­tion (con­duct­ed, I may say, with ad­mirable clev­er­ness), the spy al­ways showed us the doubt­ful per­son was re­al­ly some in­no­cent and well-​known char­ac­ter, whose an­tecedents and sur­round­ings he elu­ci­dat­ed most won­der­ful­ly. He was a per­fect mar­vel, too, in his fac­ul­ty of sus­pi­cion. He sus­pect­ed ev­ery­body. If an old friend dropped in to talk busi­ness with Charles, we found out af­ter­wards that Med­hurst had lain con­cealed all the time be­hind the cur­tain, and had tak­en short-​hand notes of the whole con­ver­sa­tion, as well as snap-​shot pho­tographs of the sup­posed sharp­er, by means of a ko­dak. If a fat old la­dy came to call up­on Amelia, Med­hurst was sure to be lurk­ing un­der the ot­toman in the draw­ing-​room, and care­ful­ly ob­serv­ing, with all his eyes, whether or not she was re­al­ly Mme. Pi­cardet, padded. When La­dy Tresco brought her four plain daugh­ters to an “At Home” one night, Med­hurst, in evening dress, dis­guised as a wait­er, fol­lowed them each round the room with ob­tru­sive ices, to sat­is­fy him­self just how much of their com­plex­ion was re­al, and how much was patent rouge and Bloom of Ni­non. He doubt­ed whether Simp­son, Sir Charles’s valet, was not Colonel Clay in plain clothes; and he had half an idea that Césarine her­self was our saucy White Heather in an al­ter­na­tive avatar. We point­ed out to him in vain that Simp­son had of­ten been present in the very same room with David Granton, and that Césarine had dressed Mrs. Brabazon’s hair at Lucerne: this par­tial­ly sat­is­fied him, but on­ly par­tial­ly. He re­marked that Simp­son might dou­ble both parts with some­body else un­known; and that as for Césarine, she might well have a twin sis­ter who took her place when she was Mme. Pi­cardet.

Still, in spite of all his care–or be­cause of all his care–Colonel Clay stopped away for whole weeks to­geth­er. An ex­pla­na­tion oc­curred to us. Was it pos­si­ble he knew we were guard­ed and watched? Was he afraid of mea­sur­ing swords with this trained de­tec­tive?

If so, how had he found it out? I had an inkling, my­self–but, un­der all the cir­cum­stances, I did not men­tion it to Charles. It was clear that Césarine in­tense­ly dis­liked this new ad­di­tion to the Van­drift house­hold. She would not stop in the room where the de­tec­tive was, or show him com­mon po­lite­ness. She spoke of him al­ways as “that odi­ous man, Med­hurst.” Could she have guessed, what none of the oth­er ser­vants knew, that the man was a spy in search of the Colonel? I was in­clined to be­lieve it. And then it dawned up­on me that Césarine had known all about the di­amonds and their sto­ry; that it was Césarine who took us to see Schloss Leben­stein; that it was Césarine who post­ed the let­ter to Lord Craig-​El­lachie! If Césarine was in league with Colonel Clay, as I was half in­clined to sur­mise, what more nat­ural than her ob­vi­ous dis­like to the de­tec­tive who was there to catch her prin­ci­pal? What more sim­ple for her than to warn her fel­low-​con­spir­ator of the dan­ger that await­ed him if he ap­proached this man Med­hurst?

How­ev­er, I was too much fright­ened by the episode of the cheque to say any­thing of my nascent sus­pi­cions to Charles. I wait­ed rather to see how events would shape them­selves.

Af­ter a while Med­hurst’s vig­ilance grew pos­itive­ly an­noy­ing. More than once he came to Charles with re­ports and short­hand notes dis­tinct­ly dis­taste­ful to my ex­cel­lent broth­er-​in-​law. “The fel­low is get­ting to know too much about us,” Charles said to me one day. “Why, Sey, he spies out ev­ery­thing. Would you be­lieve it, when I had that con­fi­den­tial in­ter­view with Brook­field the oth­er day, about the new is­sue of Gol­con­das, the man was un­der the easy-​chair, though I searched the room be­fore­hand to make sure he wasn’t there; and he came to me af­ter­wards with full notes of the con­ver­sa­tion, to as­sure me he thought Brook­field–whom I’ve known for ten years–was too tall by half an inch to be one of Colonel Clay’s im­per­son­ations.”

“Oh, but, Sir Charles,” Med­hurst cried, emerg­ing sud­den­ly from the book­case, “you must nev­er look up­on _any one_ as above sus­pi­cion mere­ly be­cause you’ve known him for ten years or there­abouts. Colonel Clay may have ap­proached you at var­ious times un­der many dis­guis­es. He may have built up this thing grad­ual­ly. Be­sides, as to my know­ing too much, why, of course, a de­tec­tive al­ways learns many things about his em­ploy­er’s fam­ily which he is not sup­posed to know; but pro­fes­sion­al hon­our and pro­fes­sion­al eti­quette, as with doc­tors and lawyers, com­pel him to lock them up as ab­so­lute se­crets in his own bo­som. You need nev­er be afraid I will di­vulge one jot of them. If I did, my oc­cu­pa­tion would be gone, and my rep­uta­tion shat­tered.”

Charles looked at him, ap­palled. “Do you dare to say,” he burst out, “you’ve been lis­ten­ing to my talk with my broth­er-​in-​law and sec­re­tary?”

“Why, of course,” Med­hurst an­swered. “It’s my busi­ness to lis­ten, and to sus­pect ev­ery­body. If you push me to say so, how do I know Colonel Clay is not–Mr. Went­worth?”

Charles with­ered him with a look. “In fu­ture, Med­hurst,” he said, “you must nev­er con­ceal your­self in a room where I am with­out my leave and knowl­edge.”

Med­hurst bowed po­lite­ly. “Oh, as you will, Sir Charles,” he an­swered; “that’s _quite_ at your own wish. Though how can I act as an ef­fi­cient de­tec­tive, any way, if you in­sist up­on ty­ing my hands like that, be­fore­hand?”

Again I de­tect­ed a faint Amer­ican flavour.

Af­ter that re­buff, how­ev­er, Med­hurst seemed put up­on his met­tle. He re­dou­bled his vig­ilance in ev­ery di­rec­tion. “It’s not my fault,” he said plain­tive­ly, one day, “if my rep­uta­tion’s so good that, while I’m near you, this rogue won’t ap­proach you. If I can’t _catch_ him, at least I keep him away from com­ing near you!”

A few days lat­er, how­ev­er, he brought Charles some pho­tographs. These he pro­duced with ev­ident pride. The first he showed us was a vi­gnette of a lit­tle par­son. “Who’s that, then?” he in­quired, much pleased.

We gazed at it, open-​eyed. One word rose to our lips si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly: “Brabazon!”

“And how’s this for high?” he asked again, pro­duc­ing an­oth­er–the pho­to­graph of a gay young dog in a Ty­rolese cos­tume.

We mur­mured, “Von Leben­stein!”

“_And_ this?” he con­tin­ued, show­ing us the por­trait of a la­dy with a most fetch­ing squint.

We an­swered with one voice, “Lit­tle Mrs. Granton!”

Med­hurst was nat­ural­ly proud of this ex­cel­lent ex­ploit. He re­placed them in his pock­et-​book with an air of just tri­umph.

“How did you get them?” Charles asked.

Med­hurst’s look was mys­te­ri­ous. “Sir Charles,” he an­swered, draw­ing him­self up, “I must ask you to trust me awhile in this mat­ter. Re­mem­ber, there are peo­ple whom you de­cline to sus­pect. _I_ have learned that it is al­ways those very peo­ple who are most dan­ger­ous to cap­ital­ists. If I were to give you the names now, you would refuse to be­lieve me. There­fore, I hold them over dis­creet­ly for the mo­ment. One thing, how­ev­er, I say. I _know_ to a cer­tain­ty where Colonel Clay is at this present speak­ing. But I will lay my plans deep, and I hope be­fore long to se­cure him. You shall be present when I do so; and I shall make him con­fess his per­son­al­ity open­ly. More than that you can­not rea­son­ably ask. I shall leave it to _you_, then, whether or not you wish to ar­rest him.”

Charles was con­sid­er­ably puz­zled, not to say piqued, by this cu­ri­ous ret­icence; he begged hard for names; but Med­hurst was adamant. “No, no,” he replied; “we de­tec­tives have our own just pride in our pro­fes­sion. If I told you now, you would prob­ably spoil all by some pre­ma­ture ac­tion. You are too open and im­pul­sive! I will men­tion this alone: Colonel Clay will be short­ly in Paris, and be­fore long will be­gin from that city a fresh at­tempt at de­fraud­ing you, which he is now hatch­ing. Mark my words, and see whether or not I have been kept well in­formed of the fel­low’s move­ments!”

He was per­fect­ly cor­rect. Two days lat­er, as it turned out, Charles re­ceived a “con­fi­den­tial” let­ter from Paris, pur­port­ing to come from the head of a sec­ond-​rate fi­nan­cial house with which he had had deal­ings over the Craig-​El­lachie Amal­ga­ma­tion–by this time, I ought to have said, an ac­com­plished union. It was a let­ter of small im­por­tance in it­self–a mere mat­ter of de­tail; but it paved the way, so Med­hurst thought, to some lat­er de­vel­op­ment of more se­ri­ous char­ac­ter. Here once more the man’s sin­gu­lar fore­sight was jus­ti­fied. For, in an­oth­er week, we re­ceived a sec­ond com­mu­ni­ca­tion, con­tain­ing oth­er pro­pos­als of a del­icate fi­nan­cial char­ac­ter, which would have in­volved the trans­fer­ence of some two thou­sand pounds to the head of the Parisian firm at an ad­dress giv­en. Both these let­ters Med­hurst clev­er­ly com­pared with those writ­ten to Charles be­fore, in the names of Colonel Clay and of Graf von Leben­stein. At first sight, it is true, the dif­fer­ences be­tween the two seemed quite enor­mous: the Paris hand was broad and black, large and bold; while the ear­li­er manuscript was small, neat, thin, and gen­tle­man­ly. Still, when Med­hurst point­ed out to us cer­tain per­sis­tent twists in the for­ma­tion of his cap­itals, and cer­tain cu­ri­ous pe­cu­liar­ities in the rel­ative length of his t’s, his l’s, his b’s, and his h’s, we could see for our­selves he was right; both were the work of one hand, writ­ing in the one case with a sharp-​point­ed nib, very small, and in the oth­er with a quill, very large and freely.

This dis­cov­ery was _most_ im­por­tant. We stood now with­in mea­sur­able dis­tance of catch­ing Colonel Clay, and bring­ing forgery and fraud home to him with­out hope of eva­sion.

To make all sure, how­ev­er, Med­hurst com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the Paris po­lice, and showed us their an­swers. Mean­while, Charles con­tin­ued to write to the head of the firm, who had giv­en a pri­vate ad­dress in the Rue Jean Jacques, al­leg­ing, I must say, a most clever rea­son why the ne­go­ti­ations at this stage should be con­fi­den­tial­ly con­duct­ed. But one nev­er ex­pect­ed from Colonel Clay any­thing less than con­sum­mate clev­er­ness. In the end, it was ar­ranged that we three were to go over to Paris to­geth­er, that Med­hurst was to un­der­take, un­der the guise of be­ing Sir Charles, to pay the two thou­sand pounds to the pre­tend­ed fi­nancier, and that Charles and I, wait­ing with the po­lice out­side the door, should, at a giv­en sig­nal, rush in with our forces and se­cure the crim­inal.

We went over ac­cord­ing­ly, and spent the night at the Grand, as is Charles’s cus­tom. The Bris­tol, which I pre­fer, he finds too qui­et. Ear­ly next morn­ing we took a fi­acre and drove to the Rue Jean Jacques. Med­hurst had ar­ranged ev­ery­thing in ad­vance with the Paris po­lice, three of whom, in plain clothes, were wait­ing at the foot of the stair­case to as­sist us. Charles had fur­ther pro­vid­ed him­self with two thou­sand pounds, in notes of the Bank of France, in or­der that the pay­ment might be du­ly made, and no doubt arise as to the crime hav­ing been per­pe­trat­ed as well as med­itat­ed–in the for­mer case, the penal­ty would be fif­teen years; in the lat­ter, three on­ly. He was in very high spir­its. The fact that we had tracked the ras­cal to earth at last, and were with­in an hour of ap­pre­hend­ing him, was in it­self enough to raise his courage great­ly. We found, as we ex­pect­ed, that the num­ber giv­en in the Rue Jean Jacques was that of an ho­tel, not a pri­vate res­idence. Med­hurst went in first, and in­quired of the land­lord whether our man was at home, at the same time in­form­ing him of the na­ture of our er­rand, and giv­ing him to un­der­stand that if we ef­fect­ed the cap­ture by his friend­ly aid, Sir Charles would see that the ex­pens­es in­curred on the swindler’s bill were met in full, as the price of his as­sis­tance. The land­lord bowed; he ex­pressed his deep re­gret, as M. le Colonel–so we heard him call him–was a most ami­able per­son, much liked by the house­hold; but jus­tice, of course, must have its way; and, with a re­gret­ful sigh, he un­der­took to as­sist us.

The po­lice re­mained be­low, but Charles and Med­hurst were each pro­vid­ed with a pair of hand­cuffs. Re­mem­ber­ing the Polper­ro case, how­ev­er, we de­ter­mined to use them with the great­est cau­tion. We would on­ly put them on in case of vi­olent re­sis­tance. We crept up to the door where the mis­cre­ant was housed. Charles hand­ed the notes in an open en­ve­lope to Med­hurst, who seized them hasti­ly and held them in his hands in readi­ness for ac­tion. We had a sign con­cert­ed. When­ev­er he sneezed–which he could do in the most nat­ural man­ner–we were to open the door, rush in, and se­cure the crim­inal!

He was gone for some min­utes. Charles and I wait­ed out­side in breath­less ex­pec­ta­tion. Then Med­hurst sneezed. We flung the door open at once, and burst in up­on the crea­ture.

Med­hurst rose as we did so. He point­ed with his fin­ger. “_This_ is Colonel Clay!” he said; “keep him well in charge while I go down to the door for the po­lice to ar­rest him!”

A gen­tle­man­ly man, about mid­dle height, with a griz­zled beard and a well-​as­sumed mil­itary as­pect, rose at the same mo­ment. The en­ve­lope in which Charles had placed the notes lay on the ta­ble be­fore him. He clutched it ner­vous­ly. “I am at a loss, gen­tle­men,” he said, in an ex­cit­ed voice, “to ac­count for this in­ter­rup­tion.” He spoke with a tremor, yet with all the po­lite­ness to which we were ac­cus­tomed in the lit­tle cu­rate and the Hon­ourable David.

“No non­sense!” Charles ex­claimed, in his au­thor­ita­tive way. “We know who you are. We have found you out this time. You are Colonel Clay. If you at­tempt to re­sist–take care–I will hand­cuff you!”

The mil­itary gen­tle­man gave a start. “Yes, I _am_ Colonel Clay,” he an­swered. “On what charge do you ar­rest me?”

Charles was burst­ing with wrath. The fel­low’s cool­ness seemed nev­er to desert him. “You _are_ Colonel Clay!” he mut­tered. “You have the un­speak­able ef­fron­tery to stand there and ad­mit it?”

“Cer­tain­ly,” the Colonel an­swered, grow­ing hot in turn. “I have done noth­ing to be ashamed of. What do you mean by this con­duct? How dare you talk of ar­rest­ing me?”

Charles laid his hand on the man’s shoul­der. “Come, come, my friend,” he said. “That sort of bluff won’t go down with us. You know very well on what charge I ar­rest you; and here are the po­lice to give ef­fect to it.”

He called out “En­trez!” The po­lice en­tered the room. Charles ex­plained as well as he could in most doubt­ful Parisian what they were next to do. The Colonel drew him­self up in an in­dig­nant at­ti­tude. He turned and ad­dressed them in ex­cel­lent French.

“I am an of­fi­cer in the ser­vice of her Bri­tan­nic Majesty,” he said. “On what ground do you ven­ture to in­ter­fere with me, messieurs?”

The chief po­lice­man ex­plained. The Colonel turned to Charles. “_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 fi­acres, 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 at­taché; 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 at­taché 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 at­taché 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 at­taché 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 at­taché 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 pro­duced it. “This en­ve­lope,” he said, “was left with me by the man with short stiff hair, who came just be­fore you, and who an­nounced him­self as Sir Charles Van­drift. He said he was in­ter­est­ed in tea in As­sam, and want­ed me to join the board of di­rec­tors of some bo­gus com­pa­ny. These are his pa­pers, I be­lieve,” and he hand­ed them to his cousin.

“Well, I’m glad the notes are safe, any­how,” Charles mur­mured, in a tone of re­lief, be­gin­ning to smell a rat. “Will you kind­ly re­turn them to me?”

The at­taché turned out the con­tents of the en­ve­lope. They proved to be prospec­tus­es of bub­ble com­pa­nies of the mo­ment, of no im­por­tance.

“Med­hurst must have put them there,” I cried, “and de­camped with the cash.”

Charles gave a groan of hor­ror. “And Med­hurst is Colonel Clay!” he ex­claimed, clap­ping his hand to his fore­head.

“I beg your par­don, sir,” the Colonel in­ter­posed. “I have but one per­son­al­ity, and no alias­es.”

It took quite half an hour to ex­plain this im­broglio. But as soon as all was ex­plained, in French and En­glish, to the sat­is­fac­tion of our­selves and the juge d’in­struc­tion, the re­al Colonel shook hands with us in a most for­giv­ing way, and in­formed us that he had more than once won­dered, when he gave his name at shops in Paris, why it was of­ten re­ceived with such grave sus­pi­cion. We in­struct­ed the po­lice that the true cul­prit was Med­hurst, whom they had seen with their own eyes, and whom we urged them to pur­sue with all ex­pe­di­tion. Mean­while, Charles and I, ac­com­pa­nied by the Colonel and the at­taché–“to see the fun out,” as they said–called at the Bank of France for the pur­pose of stop­ping the notes im­me­di­ate­ly. It was too late, how­ev­er. They had been pre­sent­ed at once, and cashed in gold, by a pleas­ant lit­tle la­dy in an Amer­ican cos­tume, who was af­ter­wards iden­ti­fied by the ho­tel-​keep­er (from our de­scrip­tion) as his lodger, Mme. Pi­cardet. It was clear she had tak­en rooms in the same ho­tel, to be near the In­di­an Colonel; and it was _she_ who had re­ceived and sent the let­ters. As for our foe, he had van­ished in­to space, as al­ways.

Two days lat­er we re­ceived the usu­al in­sult­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion on a sheet of Charles’s own dain­ty note. Last time he wrote it was on Craig-​El­lachie pa­per: this time, like the wan­ton lap­wing, he had got him­self an­oth­er crest.

“MOST PER­SPI­CA­CIOUS OF MIL­LION­AIRES!–Said I not well, as Med­hurst, that you must dis­trust ev­ery­body? And the one man you nev­er dreamt of dis­trust­ing was–Med­hurst. 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. Césarine 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 dis­proved my sus­pi­cions of poor Césarine.