Visitors who would not give their names but claimed to be citizens of Ludsey were not infrequent while Parliament was in session. They usually came with the same request--the loan of their fare home, where they had relations to look after them; and they were usually impostors, who had not so much as seen the spire of St. Anne's Church. But, on the other hand, there was always a possibility that the case might be genuine, and Cynthia made it a rule to see them. She had already got her purse out of her bag when the door was opened. But she dropped it when she saw her visitor. "M. Poizat," she cried, and she held out her hand to him. M. Poizat, however, did not take it. "You have been kept waiting. You should have sent in your name." M. Poizat shook his head. "Would you have received me if I had, Mrs. Rames?" "Of course." "You are very kind." Cynthia looked at him with a closer scrutiny. Certainly the M. Poizat who confronted her was the merest shadow of the sprightly inventor of Lungatine. The elasticity had gone from his wonderful legs. No longer he danced when he walked. His arms hung loose at his side, and the potency of his elixir had quite failed him. He was now a really old, small man. Indeed, he seemed to have diminished in stature and to have shrivelled in breadth; and his eyes were red, as though he had lately wept. Thus much had been taken from him. Yet something had been added, the dignity of a man whom calamity has overtaken. "Why am I very kind to receive you?" Cynthia asked gently. M. Poizat stared at her incredulously. "Then you do not know what has happened to me?" "No! Sit down and tell me." But M. Poizat remained standing. "I have no longer a friend in the world. I have no longer a house. I have no longer a wife. All is gone." "I don't understand." "Ah, I know. Ladies do not read their newspapers very carefully. If the men, too, were like you! But all the same you will have heard of a case which a few days ago was making a great stir in Paris--the Jobert case." "Of course." "But you have not followed it in detail." "No." The intricacies of that gigantic case of fraud were indeed difficult to follow even for those who gave to it their attention. Nor did Poizat do more than give to Cynthia a necessary outline. Monsieur and Madame Jobert, the latter being the protagonist of the conspiracy, had borrowed over a course of years immense sums of money on the strength of securities which were supposed to exist in a sealed safe. The case could not be opened since a fictitious action by claimants, whom Madame Jobert had invented, was perpetually being deferred in the courts of law. At the last, however, the creditors of the Joberts had obtained authority to break the seals, and a safe which was absolutely empty was exposed. The Joberts alleged a theft, but they were arrested and prosecuted.