"Don't go.... It may be something connected with the King." The door was opened and the visitors announced: "M. the Commissaire of Police Giraud--Mlle. Marie Pascal." "Well, Monsieur Giraud ... take a seat, Mademoiselle ... what have you come about?" "A very serious business," answered M. Giraud. "I have come to see you after a visit from Mlle. Marie Pascal. She will repeat to you the extraordinary things she has said to me." "What is it all about, Mademoiselle?" Pale and anxious, Marie Pascal rose and advanced to M. Annion's desk, and said, with a trembling voice: "Monsieur, I went to M. Giraud about a call I wanted to make on his Majesty Frederick-Christian, King of Hesse-Weimar." "Yes?" "Well, Monsieur, I was not received by the King." M. Annion evinced no surprise. "Unless I am mistaken you are the lace-maker who was so tragically mixed up in the death of Susy d'Orsel?... It was you who found the chemise ... it was you who ... however, go ahead, Mademoiselle, you were received by a secretary, by a chamberlain?" "No! no! I was received by the King, but by a King who wasn't the real one, but an impostor!" "Good God!" cried M. Annion. Here was this impostor affair cropping up again. The girl must be crazy. "But it's unbelievable! Come, Mademoiselle, weigh well the gravity of your words--you can scarcely be making this up as a joke, I hope. You can furnish absolute proof of what you say? Why do you think the King is not the King?" Marie Pascal had recovered her self-control, and she gave M. Annion a detailed account of the audience she had obtained with Frederick-Christian. She hid nothing, neither his former warmth of feeling nor his recent coldness. She explained that his face no longer looked the same, nor had his voice the same sound, that he had attempted to hide behind the screen and finally that she was quite sure the man she saw was not the King. "What did you do, Mademoiselle?" This time M. Giraud spoke up: "Mlle. Marie was wrong in what she did, but under the stress of emotion she raised the whole hotel and made such a row that M. Louis advised her to come and see me." "Very good, and then?" "Why, M. Annion, I hurried to the Royal Palace and made an investigation, where I confirmed what Mademoiselle had told me. I then decided I had better lay the matter before you." M. Annion sat deep in thought for a few moments. Then he burst out: "Hang it! Your accusation of imposture is absurd, Mademoiselle, utterly impossible!" Then, turning to M. Vicart, he added: "Haven't we the formal declaration, irrefutable, of that Secret Service man ... Glaschk..." "Wulfenmimenglaschk." "That's it!... Have you seen him, M. Giraud?" "I have, but I couldn't get anything out of him; he was three-quarters drunk, and furious with his Majesty who had just struck him." M. Annion stared in amazement. "But Frederick-Christian was his friend--his intimate friend ... they were pals ... and you say he struck him?"