“Yes, but the consequences may be dangerous. I would answer for the patient here. Down there—under his present conditions—” “Bad conditions?” “Execrable!—A room in an inn—and the practically absolute impossibility of being attended to.” “Then what can save him?” “A miracle—and his constitution, which is an exceptionally strong one.” “And can you say nothing more about this strange patient?” “No. In the first place, I have taken an oath; and, secondly, I have received a present of ten thousand francs for my free surgery. If I do not keep silence, this sum will be taken from me.” “You are joking! Do you believe that?” “Indeed I do. The men all struck me as being very much in earnest.” This is the statement made to us by Dr. Delattre. And we know, on the other hand, that the head of the detective service, in spite of all his insisting, has not yet succeeded in extracting any more precise particulars from him as to the operation which he performed, the patient whom he attended or the district traversed by the car. It is difficult, therefore, to arrive at the truth. This truth, which the writer of the interview confessed himself unable to discover, was guessed by the more or less clear-sighted minds that perceived a connection with the facts which had occurred the day before at the Château d’Ambrumésy, and which were reported, down to the smallest detail, in all the newspapers of that day. There was evidently a coincidence to be reckoned with in the disappearance of a wounded burglar and the kidnapping of a famous surgeon. The judicial inquiry, moreover, proved the correctness of the hypothesis. By following the track of the sham flyman, who had fled on a bicycle, they were able to show that he had reached the forest of Arques, at some ten miles’ distance, and that from there, after throwing his bicycle into a ditch, he had gone to the village of Saint-Nicolas, whence he had dispatched the following telegram: A. L. N., _Post-office_ 45, Paris. Situation desperate. Operation urgently necessary. Send celebrity by national road fourteen. The evidence was undeniable. Once apprised the accomplices in Paris hastened to make their arrangements. At ten o’clock in the evening they sent their celebrity by National Road No. 14, which skirts the forest of Arques and ends at Dieppe. During this time, under cover of the fire which they themselves had caused, the gang of burglars carried off their leader and moved him to an inn, where the operation took place on the arrival of the surgeon, at two o’clock in the morning.