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
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.
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