"You bet!" the Commissary replied, and drew himself up like a captain of infantry. "Messieurs," he continued, in French, with the utmost dignity, "I shall devote the resources of this office to tracing out the crime, and, if possible, to effectuating the arrest of the culpable." We telegraphed to London, of course, and we wrote to the bank, with a full description of the suspected person. But I need hardly add that nothing came of it. Three days later the Commissary called at our hotel. "Well, gentlemen," he said, "I am glad to say I have discovered everything!" "What? Arrested the Seer?" Sir Charles cried. The Commissary drew back, almost horrified at the suggestion. "Arrested Colonel Clay?" he exclaimed. "Mais, monsieur, we are only human! Arrested him? No, not quite. But tracked out how he did it. That is already much--to unravel Colonel Clay, gentlemen!" "Well, what do you make of it?" Sir Charles asked, crestfallen. The Commissary sat down and gloated over his discovery. It was clear a well-planned crime amused him vastly. "In the first place, monsieur," he said, "disabuse your mind of the idea that when monsieur your secretary went out to fetch Senor Herrera that night, Senor Herrera didn't know to whose rooms he was coming. Quite otherwise, in point of fact. I do not doubt myself that Senor Herrera, or Colonel Clay (call him which you like), came to Nice this winter for no other purpose than just to rob you." "But I sent for him," my brother-in-law interposed. "Yes; he _meant_ you to send for him. He forced a card, so to speak. If he couldn't do that I guess he would be a pretty poor conjurer. He had a lady of his own--his wife, let us say, or his sister--stopping here at this hotel; a certain Madame Picardet. Through her he induced several ladies of your circle to attend his seances. She and they spoke to you about him, and aroused your curiosity. You may bet your bottom dollar that when he came to this room he came ready primed and prepared with endless facts about both of you." "What fools we have been, Sey," my brother-in-law exclaimed. "I see it all now. That designing woman sent round before dinner to say I wanted to meet him; and by the time you got there he was ready for bamboozling me." "That's so," the Commissary answered. "He had your name ready painted on both his arms; and he had made other preparations of still greater importance." "You mean the cheque. Well, how did he get it?" The Commissary opened the door. "Come in," he said. And a young man entered whom we recognised at once as the chief clerk in the Foreign Department of the Credit Marseillais, the principal bank all along the Riviera. "State what you know of this cheque," the Commissary said, showing it to him, for we had handed it over to the police as a piece of evidence. "About four weeks since--" the clerk began. "Say ten days before your seance," the Commissary interposed.