"Unfortunately I was not on hand. The police got wind of the death and confiscated what papers they could lay their hands on, but those desired were evidently well concealed. The German police have leaden feet and heads of straw. Was it not childish to search for evidences in the house of the suspected man? A fool indeed would he have been to hide them there. Not less than ten times has the impostor's house been raided, under pretext of fire or burglary or what not, but to no purpose. They have not been near him. But lately since his residence in England he has kept them, for in England we have not so free a field--" "He has lived in England?" "Yes, your Majesty, he moved there from Prussia, realizing that a country whose cabinet was not on friendly terms with ours and in which respect for the home is carried to great lengths, was a more appropriate habitat for him than Prussia. In England our individual, ceasing to write letters to influential personages of Europe and failing to receive the desired recognition, devoted himself to watch-making and chemistry. He is said to have invented a new explosive." "Why then has he been molested? When a man lives inoffensively--" "Your Majesty, he was not disturbed, tho we continued to watch him. Our suspicions were aroused when we learned that he had sent his eldest daughter to France. This girl is an able strategist, a second edition of La Mothe. She caught in her net no less a nobleman than the Marquis de Brezé." "Eve enters the garden," piquantly observed the King. "Matters became complicated indeed. The girl sought nothing less than the undermining of the throne. I tried to sever the cords by making the Duchess of Rousillon--" "That inflated hen? Competent agent indeed!" "I commissioned her to reveal the antecedents of the girl's father to the infatuated Marquis. But Love was blind as usual, and the Marquis slipped through our hands and arrived in England just in time to save his prospective father-in-law's life." "His life? Who threatened his life?" "Oh, pickpockets! one of those nocturnal encounters so common in London streets. That is an unimportant detail in our narrative. We are reaching the heart of the matter. The girl had captured the Marquis with the aim of establishing in the very camp of French aristocracy a following for her father. The precious documents were confided to René and a journey to France arranged, the three to meet in Dover." "And how have you ascertained these particulars, Baron?" "Should I be doing my duty, did I not gather every particular? My business is to know all things regarding this infernal plot. Volpetti no sooner learned where the confederates were to meet than he arranged to put up at the same inn. He possessed himself of the papers by the cleverest strategy--" The King, unmindful of his disabled limbs, half jumped from the couch. "Then we are saved!" he cried. "For Volpetti surely destroyed them at once."