There remained the house party, which, of course, included Mr. Aaron Jacobs. There were also several ladies and gentlemen staying at the château, and before they all went up to their rooms to dress for dinner, they were told what had happened. In the meanwhile the police had already been sent for, and M. le Commissaire was conducting his preliminary investigations. The rooms and belongings of all the servants were searched, and, with the consent of the guests themselves, this search was extended to their rooms. A work of art worth half a million dollars could not thus be allowed to disappear and the thief to remain undetected for the sake of social conventions, and as the law stands in France any man may be guilty of a crime until he be proved innocent. §2 The theft of the Ingres masterpiece was one of those cases which interest the public in every civilised country, and here in England where most people are bitten with the craze for criminal investigation it created quite a sensation in its way. I remember that when we all realised for the first time that the picture had in very truth disappeared, and that the French police, despite its much vaunted acumen, had entirely failed to find the slightest trace of the thief, we at once began to look about for a romantic solution of the mystery. M. le Duc de Rochechouart and his pretty Duchesse had above all our deepest sympathy, for it had very soon transpired that neither the Ingres masterpiece, nor indeed any of the Duc's valuable collection of art works, was insured. This fact seems almost incredible to English minds, with whom every kind of insurance is part and parcel of the ordinary household routine. But abroad the system is not nearly so far-reaching or so extended, and there are numberless households in every degree of the social scale who never dream of spending money on insurances save, perhaps, against fire.