I always enjoy a struggle with a foe worthy of my steel, and this was by no means my first bout with the famous detective force of Paris. On my first settling in Paris, their attentions to me had been incessant and disagreeable, and it had taken all my ingenuity to keep my secrets from them. By degrees we had drifted into a species of informal armistice, it being understood, rather than agreed, that they abandoned the attempt to follow my proceedings, while I refrained from acting against them in the criminal affairs with which they were chiefly concerned. Between M. Rattache, the brilliant head of the force, and myself there had sprung up a warm private friendship, based on mutual respect. I knew that he would not have permitted his men to trouble me without pretty good grounds for so doing; and this made me the more anxious. My first thought, after visiting the Quartier Latin, was for my private residence. I felt pretty sure that the police could not have been there in the night without my knowledge, and I asked myself what plan the fertile brain of my rival would devise in order to search the premises without giving me warning. I hailed a fiacre, and bade the driver go to my house at his best speed. It was not yet eleven o’clock, so there was room for hope that M. Rattache had not begun his attack in this quarter. If he had, I should probably catch his men at work. As we drew near the street in which my house is situated we were overtaken by a fire-engine, which dashed by at a gallop. Struck by a sudden apprehension, I offered my driver a golden _pourboire_ to double his speed. [Illustration: “I was stopped at the barricade by a pompous sergeant of police.”] It was too late. As we drove up I beheld a thick black column of smoke issuing from my house. A barricade had been formed; half a dozen fire-engines were drawn up in front, though it was remarkable that not one had yet begun to play upon the building; and every floor appeared to be swarming with firemen, who were gutting the house of everything it contained. In spite of my vexation at the sight of my ruined home, I could not withhold my tribute of admiration to M. Rattache’s promptness and resource. Under the pretence of a fire, which he had of course contrived to start, and which was well under control, he had turned in a horde of detectives, disguised as firemen, with instructions to pull the building to pieces, if necessary, in search of the Humbert millions. It was useless for me to think of interfering. I was stopped at the barricade by a pompous sergeant of police, who took down my name and address, rebuked me severely for my negligence in permitting my house to catch fire, and forbade me to interrupt the firemen in their benevolent labours on my behalf.