



Produced by Don Lainson and Andrew Sly.  HTML version by Al Haines.









An African Millionaire

Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay


By Grant Allen

First published in 1897



CONTENTS


1.  The Episode of the Mexican Seer

2.  The Episode of the Diamond Links

3.  The Episode of the Old Master

4.  The Episode of the Tyrolean Castle

5.  The Episode of the Drawn Game

6.  The Episode of the German Professor

7.  The Episode of the Arrest of the Colonel

8.  The Episode of the Seldon Gold-Mine

9.  The Episode of the Japanned Dispatch-Box

10.  The Episode of the Game of Poker

11.  The Episode of the Bertillon Method

12.  The Episode of the Old Bailey




I

THE EPISODE OF THE MEXICAN SEER


My name is Seymour Wilbraham Wentworth. I am brother-in-law and
secretary to Sir Charles Vandrift, the South African millionaire and
famous financier. Many years ago, when Charlie Vandrift was a small
lawyer in Cape Town, I had the (qualified) good fortune to marry his
sister. Much later, when the Vandrift estate and farm near Kimberley
developed by degrees into the Cloetedorp Golcondas, Limited, my
brother-in-law offered me the not unremunerative post of secretary;
in which capacity I have ever since been his constant and attached
companion.

He is not a man whom any common sharper can take in, is Charles
Vandrift. Middle height, square build, firm mouth, keen eyes--the
very picture of a sharp and successful business genius. I have only
known one rogue impose upon Sir Charles, and that one rogue, as the
Commissary of Police at Nice remarked, would doubtless have imposed
upon a syndicate of Vidocq, Robert Houdin, and Cagliostro.

We had run across to the Riviera for a few weeks in the season. Our
object being strictly rest and recreation from the arduous duties
of financial combination, we did not think it necessary to take our
wives out with us. Indeed, Lady Vandrift is absolutely wedded to the
joys of London, and does not appreciate the rural delights of the
Mediterranean littoral. But Sir Charles and I, though immersed in
affairs when at home, both thoroughly enjoy the complete change from
the City to the charming vegetation and pellucid air on the terrace
at Monte Carlo. We _are_ so fond of scenery. That delicious view
over the rocks of Monaco, with the Maritime Alps in the rear, and
the blue sea in front, not to mention the imposing Casino in the
foreground, appeals to me as one of the most beautiful prospects in
all Europe. Sir Charles has a sentimental attachment for the place.
He finds it restores and freshens him, after the turmoil of London,
to win a few hundreds at roulette in the course of an afternoon
among the palms and cactuses and pure breezes of Monte Carlo. The
country, say I, for a jaded intellect! However, we never on any
account actually stop in the Principality itself. Sir Charles thinks
Monte Carlo is not a sound address for a financier's letters. He
prefers a comfortable hotel on the Promenade des Anglais at Nice,
where he recovers health and renovates his nervous system by taking
daily excursions along the coast to the Casino.

This particular season we were snugly ensconced at the Hotel des
Anglais. We had capital quarters on the first floor--salon, study,
and bedrooms--and found on the spot a most agreeable cosmopolitan
society. All Nice, just then, was ringing with talk about a curious
impostor, known to his followers as the Great Mexican Seer, and
supposed to be gifted with second sight, as well as with endless
other supernatural powers. Now, it is a peculiarity of my able
brother-in-law's that, when he meets with a quack, he burns to
expose him; he is so keen a man of business himself that it gives
him, so to speak, a disinterested pleasure to unmask and detect
imposture in others. Many ladies at the hotel, some of whom had met
and conversed with the Mexican Seer, were constantly telling us
strange stories of his doings. He had disclosed to one the present
whereabouts of a runaway husband; he had pointed out to another the
numbers that would win at roulette next evening; he had shown a
third the image on a screen of the man she had for years adored
without his knowledge. Of course, Sir Charles didn't believe a word
of it; but his curiosity was roused; he wished to see and judge for
himself of the wonderful thought-reader.

"What would be his terms, do you think, for a private seance?" he
asked of Madame Picardet, the lady to whom the Seer had successfully
predicted the winning numbers.

"He does not work for money," Madame Picardet answered, "but for
the good of humanity. I'm sure he would gladly come and exhibit for
nothing his miraculous faculties."

"Nonsense!" Sir Charles answered. "The man must live. I'd pay him
five guineas, though, to see him alone. What hotel is he stopping at?"

"The Cosmopolitan, I think," the lady answered. "Oh no; I remember
now, the Westminster."

Sir Charles turned to me quietly. "Look here, Seymour," he
whispered. "Go round to this fellow's place immediately after
dinner, and offer him five pounds to give a private seance at once
in my rooms, without mentioning who I am to him; keep the name quite
quiet. Bring him back with you, too, and come straight upstairs
with him, so that there may be no collusion. We'll see just how much
the fellow can tell us."

I went as directed. I found the Seer a very remarkable and
interesting person. He stood about Sir Charles's own height, but was
slimmer and straighter, with an aquiline nose, strangely piercing
eyes, very large black pupils, and a finely-chiselled close-shaven
face, like the bust of Antinous in our hall in Mayfair. What gave him
his most characteristic touch, however, was his odd head of hair,
curly and wavy like Paderewski's, standing out in a halo round his
high white forehead and his delicate profile. I could see at a
glance why he succeeded so well in impressing women; he had the
look of a poet, a singer, a prophet.

"I have come round," I said, "to ask whether you will consent to
give a seance at once in a friend's rooms; and my principal wishes
me to add that he is prepared to pay five pounds as the price of the
entertainment."

Senor Antonio Herrera--that was what he called himself--bowed to
me with impressive Spanish politeness. His dusky olive cheeks were
wrinkled with a smile of gentle contempt as he answered gravely--

"I do not sell my gifts; I bestow them freely. If your friend--your
anonymous friend--desires to behold the cosmic wonders that are
wrought through my hands, I am glad to show them to him.
Fortunately, as often happens when it is necessary to convince
and confound a sceptic (for that your friend is a sceptic I feel
instinctively), I chance to have no engagements at all this
evening." He ran his hand through his fine, long hair reflectively.
"Yes, I go," he continued, as if addressing some unknown presence
that hovered about the ceiling; "I go; come with me!" Then he put on
his broad sombrero, with its crimson ribbon, wrapped a cloak round
his shoulders, lighted a cigarette, and strode forth by my side
towards the Hotel des Anglais.

He talked little by the way, and that little in curt sentences. He
seemed buried in deep thought; indeed, when we reached the door and
I turned in, he walked a step or two farther on, as if not noticing
to what place I had brought him. Then he drew himself up short, and
gazed around him for a moment. "Ha, the Anglais," he said--and I may
mention in passing that his English, in spite of a slight southern
accent, was idiomatic and excellent. "It is here, then; it is here!"
He was addressing once more the unseen presence.

I smiled to think that these childish devices were intended to
deceive Sir Charles Vandrift. Not quite the sort of man (as the City
of London knows) to be taken in by hocus-pocus. And all this, I saw,
was the cheapest and most commonplace conjurer's patter.

We went upstairs to our rooms. Charles had gathered together a
few friends to watch the performance. The Seer entered, wrapt in
thought. He was in evening dress, but a red sash round his waist
gave a touch of picturesqueness and a dash of colour. He paused for
a moment in the middle of the salon, without letting his eyes rest
on anybody or anything. Then he walked straight up to Charles, and
held out his dark hand.

"Good-evening," he said. "You are the host. My soul's sight tells
me so."

"Good shot," Sir Charles answered. "These fellows have to be
quick-witted, you know, Mrs. Mackenzie, or they'd never get on
at it."

The Seer gazed about him, and smiled blankly at a person or two
whose faces he seemed to recognise from a previous existence. Then
Charles began to ask him a few simple questions, not about himself,
but about me, just to test him. He answered most of them with
surprising correctness. "His name? His name begins with an S I
think:--You call him Seymour." He paused long between each clause, as
if the facts were revealed to him slowly. "Seymour--Wilbraham--Earl
of Strafford. No, not Earl of Strafford! Seymour Wilbraham
Wentworth. There seems to be some connection in somebody's mind now
present between Wentworth and Strafford. I am not English. I do not
know what it means. But they are somehow the same name, Wentworth
and Strafford."

He gazed around, apparently for confirmation. A lady came to his
rescue.

"Wentworth was the surname of the great Earl of Strafford," she
murmured gently; "and I was wondering, as you spoke, whether
Mr. Wentworth might possibly be descended from him."

"He is," the Seer replied instantly, with a flash of those dark
eyes. And I thought this curious; for though my father always
maintained the reality of the relationship, there was one link
wanting to complete the pedigree. He could not make sure that
the Hon. Thomas Wilbraham Wentworth was the father of Jonathan
Wentworth, the Bristol horse-dealer, from whom we are descended.

"Where was I born?" Sir Charles interrupted, coming suddenly to his
own case.

The Seer clapped his two hands to his forehead and held it between
them, as if to prevent it from bursting. "Africa," he said slowly,
as the facts narrowed down, so to speak. "South Africa; Cape of Good
Hope; Jansenville; De Witt Street. 1840."

"By Jove, he's correct," Sir Charles muttered. "He seems really to
do it. Still, he may have found me out. He may have known where he
was coming."

"I never gave a hint," I answered; "till he reached the door, he
didn't even know to what hotel I was piloting him."

The Seer stroked his chin softly. His eye appeared to me to have a
furtive gleam in it. "Would you like me to tell you the number of
a bank-note inclosed in an envelope?" he asked casually.

"Go out of the room," Sir Charles said, "while I pass it round the
company."

Senor Herrera disappeared. Sir Charles passed it round cautiously,
holding it all the time in his own hand, but letting his guests see
the number. Then he placed it in an envelope and gummed it down
firmly.

The Seer returned. His keen eyes swept the company with a
comprehensive glance. He shook his shaggy mane. Then he took
the envelope in his hands and gazed at it fixedly. "AF, 73549,"
he answered, in a slow tone. "A Bank of England note for fifty
pounds--exchanged at the Casino for gold won yesterday at
Monte Carlo."

"I see how he did that," Sir Charles said triumphantly. "He must
have changed it there himself; and then I changed it back again.
In point of fact, I remember seeing a fellow with long hair loafing
about. Still, it's capital conjuring."

"He can see through matter," one of the ladies interposed. It was
Madame Picardet. "He can see through a box." She drew a little gold
vinaigrette, such as our grandmothers used, from her dress-pocket.
"What is in this?" she inquired, holding it up to him.

Senor Herrera gazed through it. "Three gold coins," he replied,
knitting his brows with the effort of seeing into the box: "one,
an American five dollars; one, a French ten-franc piece; one,
twenty marks, German, of the old Emperor William."

She opened the box and passed it round. Sir Charles smiled a quiet
smile.

"Confederacy!" he muttered, half to himself. "Confederacy!"

The Seer turned to him with a sullen air. "You want a better sign?"
he said, in a very impressive voice. "A sign that will convince you!
Very well: you have a letter in your left waistcoat pocket--a
crumpled-up letter. Do you wish me to read it out? I will, if you
desire it."

It may seem to those who know Sir Charles incredible, but, I am
bound to admit, my brother-in-law. What that letter
contained I cannot say; he only answered, very testily and
evasively, "No, thank you; I won't trouble you. The exhibition you
have already given us of your skill in this kind more than amply
suffices." And his fingers strayed nervously to his waistcoat
pocket, as if he was half afraid, even then, Senor Herrera would
read it.

I fancied, too, he glanced somewhat anxiously towards Madame
Picardet.

The Seer bowed courteously. "Your will, senor, is law," he said. "I
make it a principle, though I can see through all things, invariably
to respect the secrecies and sanctities. If it were not so, I might
dissolve society. For which of us is there who could bear the whole
truth being told about him?" He gazed around the room. An unpleasant
thrill supervened. Most of us felt this uncanny Spanish American
knew really too much. And some of us were engaged in financial
operations.

"For example," the Seer continued blandly, "I happened a few weeks
ago to travel down here from Paris by train with a very intelligent
man, a company promoter. He had in his bag some documents--some
confidential documents:" he glanced at Sir Charles. "You know the
kind of thing, my dear sir: reports from experts--from mining
engineers. You may have seen some such; marked _strictly private_."

"They form an element in high finance," Sir Charles admitted coldly.

"Pre-cisely," the Seer murmured, his accent for a moment less
Spanish than before. "And, as they were marked _strictly private_,
I respect, of course, the seal of confidence. That's all I wish to
say. I hold it a duty, being intrusted with such powers, not to use
them in a manner which may annoy or incommode my fellow-creatures."

"Your feeling does you honour," Sir Charles answered, with some
acerbity. Then he whispered in my ear: "Confounded clever scoundrel,
Sey; rather wish we hadn't brought him here."

Senor Herrera seemed intuitively to divine this wish, for he
interposed, in a lighter and gayer tone--

"I will now show you a different and more interesting embodiment
of occult power, for which we shall need a somewhat subdued
arrangement of surrounding lights. Would you mind, senor host--for
I have purposely abstained from reading your name on the brain of
any one present--would you mind my turning down this lamp just a
little?... So! That will do. Now, this one; and this one. Exactly!
that's right." He poured a few grains of powder out of a packet into
a saucer. "Next, a match, if you please. Thank you!" It burnt with a
strange green light. He drew from his pocket a card, and produced a
little ink-bottle. "Have you a pen?" he asked.

I instantly brought one. He handed it to Sir Charles. "Oblige me,"
he said, "by writing your name there." And he indicated a place in
the centre of the card, which had an embossed edge, with a small
middle square of a different colour.

Sir Charles has a natural disinclination to signing his name without
knowing why. "What do you want with it?" he asked. (A millionaire's
signature has so many uses.)

"I want you to put the card in an envelope," the Seer replied, "and
then to burn it. After that, I shall show you your own name written
in letters of blood on my arm, in your own handwriting."

Sir Charles took the pen. If the signature was to be burned as soon
as finished, he didn't mind giving it. He wrote his name in his
usual firm clear style--the writing of a man who knows his worth
and is not afraid of drawing a cheque for five thousand.

"Look at it long," the Seer said, from the other side of the room.
He had not watched him write it.

Sir Charles stared at it fixedly. The Seer was really beginning to
produce an impression.

"Now, put it in that envelope," the Seer exclaimed.

Sir Charles, like a lamb, placed it as directed.

The Seer strode forward. "Give me the envelope," he said. He took it
in his hand, walked over towards the fireplace, and solemnly burnt
it. "See--it crumbles into ashes," he cried. Then he came back to
the middle of the room, close to the green light, rolled up his
sleeve, and held his arm before Sir Charles. There, in blood-red
letters, my brother-in-law read the name, "Charles Vandrift," in
his own handwriting!

"I see how that's done," Sir Charles murmured, drawing back. "It's
a clever delusion; but still, I see through it. It's like that
ghost-book. Your ink was deep green; your light was green; you made
me look at it long; and then I saw the same thing written on the
skin of your arm in complementary colours."

"You think so?" the Seer replied, with a curious curl of the lip.

"I'm sure of it," Sir Charles answered.

Quick as lightning the Seer again rolled up his sleeve. "That's
your name," he cried, in a very clear voice, "but not your whole
name. What do you say, then, to my right? Is this one also a
complementary colour?" He held his other arm out. There, in
sea-green letters, I read the name, "Charles O'Sullivan Vandrift."
It is my brother-in-law's full baptismal designation; but he has
dropped the O'Sullivan for many years past, and, to say the truth,
doesn't like it. He is a little bit ashamed of his mother's family.

Charles glanced at it hurriedly. "Quite right," he said, "quite
right!" But his voice was hollow. I could guess he didn't care to
continue the seance. He could see through the man, of course; but it
was clear the fellow knew too much about us to be entirely pleasant.

"Turn up the lights," I said, and a servant turned them. "Shall I
say coffee and benedictine?" I whispered to Vandrift.

"By all means," he answered. "Anything to keep this fellow from
further impertinences! And, I say, don't you think you'd better
suggest at the same time that the men should smoke? Even these
ladies are not above a cigarette--some of them."

There was a sigh of relief. The lights burned brightly. The Seer for
the moment retired from business, so to speak. He accepted a partaga
with a very good grace, sipped his coffee in a corner, and chatted
to the lady who had suggested Strafford with marked politeness. He
was a polished gentleman.

Next morning, in the hall of the hotel, I saw Madame Picardet again,
in a neat tailor-made travelling dress, evidently bound for the
railway-station.

"What, off, Madame Picardet?" I cried.

She smiled, and held out her prettily-gloved hand. "Yes, I'm off,"
she answered archly. "Florence, or Rome, or somewhere. I've drained
Nice dry--like a sucked orange. Got all the fun I can out of it.
Now I'm away again to my beloved Italy."

But it struck me as odd that, if Italy was her game, she went by the
omnibus which takes down to the train de luxe for Paris. However,
a man of the world accepts what a lady tells him, no matter how
improbable; and I confess, for ten days or so, I thought no more
about her, or the Seer either.

At the end of that time our fortnightly pass-book came in from
the bank in London. It is part of my duty, as the millionaire's
secretary, to make up this book once a fortnight, and to compare
the cancelled cheques with Sir Charles's counterfoils. On this
particular occasion I happened to observe what I can only describe
as a very grave discrepancy,--in fact, a discrepancy of 5000 pounds.
On the wrong side, too. Sir Charles was debited with 5000 pounds
more than the total amount that was shown on the counterfoils.

I examined the book with care. The source of the error was obvious.
It lay in a cheque to Self or Bearer, for 5000 pounds, signed by Sir
Charles, and evidently paid across the counter in London, as it bore
on its face no stamp or indication of any other office.

I called in my brother-in-law from the salon to the study. "Look
here, Charles," I said, "there's a cheque in the book which you
haven't entered." And I handed it to him without comment, for I
thought it might have been drawn to settle some little loss on the
turf or at cards, or to make up some other affair he didn't desire
to mention to me. These things will happen.

He looked at it and stared hard. Then he pursed up his mouth and
gave a long low "Whew!" At last he turned it over and remarked,
"I say, Sey, my boy, we've just been done jolly well brown,
haven't we?"

I glanced at the cheque. "How do you mean?" I inquired.

"Why, the Seer," he replied, still staring at it ruefully. "I
don't mind the five thou., but to think the fellow should have
gammoned the pair of us like that--ignominious, I call it!"

"How do you know it's the Seer?" I asked.

"Look at the green ink," he answered. "Besides, I recollect the
very shape of the last flourish. I flourished a bit like that in
the excitement of the moment, which I don't always do with my
regular signature."

"He's done us," I answered, recognising it. "But how the dickens
did he manage to transfer it to the cheque? This looks like your
own handwriting, Charles, not a clever forgery."

"It is," he said. "I admit it--I can't deny it. Only fancy his
bamboozling me when I was most on my guard! I wasn't to be taken
in by any of his silly occult tricks and catch-words; but it never
occurred to me he was going to victimise me financially in this
way. I expected attempts at a loan or an extortion; but to collar
my signature to a blank cheque--atrocious!"

"How did he manage it?" I asked.

"I haven't the faintest conception. I only know those are the
words I wrote. I could swear to them anywhere."

"Then you can't protest the cheque?"

"Unfortunately, no; it's my own true signature."

We went that afternoon without delay to see the Chief Commissary
of Police at the office. He was a gentlemanly Frenchman, much less
formal and red-tapey than usual, and he spoke excellent English
with an American accent, having acted, in fact, as a detective in
New York for about ten years in his early manhood.

"I guess," he said slowly, after hearing our story, "you've been
victimised right here by Colonel Clay, gentlemen."

"Who is Colonel Clay?" Sir Charles asked.

"That's just what I want to know," the Commissary answered, in
his curious American-French-English. "He is a Colonel, because he
occasionally gives himself a commission; he is called Colonel Clay,
because he appears to possess an india-rubber face, and he can
mould it like clay in the hands of the potter. Real name, unknown.
Nationality, equally French and English. Address, usually Europe.
Profession, former maker of wax figures to the Musee Grevin. Age,
what he chooses. Employs his knowledge to mould his own nose
and cheeks, with wax additions, to the character he desires to
personate. Aquiline this time, you say. Hein! Anything like these
photographs?"

He rummaged in his desk and handed us two.

"Not in the least," Sir Charles answered. "Except, perhaps, as to the
neck, everything here is quite unlike him."

"Then that's the Colonel!" the Commissary answered, with decision,
rubbing his hands in glee. "Look here," and he took out a pencil
and rapidly sketched the outline of one of the two faces--that of
a bland-looking young man, with no expression worth mentioning.
"There's the Colonel in his simple disguise. Very good. Now watch
me: figure to yourself that he adds here a tiny patch of wax to his
nose--an aquiline bridge--just so; well, you have him right there;
and the chin, ah, one touch: now, for hair, a wig: for complexion,
nothing easier: that's the profile of your rascal, isn't it?"

"Exactly," we both murmured. By two curves of the pencil, and a
shock of false hair, the face was transmuted.

"He had very large eyes, with very big pupils, though," I objected,
looking close; "and the man in the photograph here has them small
and boiled-fishy."

"That's so," the Commissary answered. "A drop of belladonna
expands--and produces the Seer; five grains of opium contract--and
give a dead-alive, stupidly-innocent appearance. Well, you leave
this affair to me, gentlemen. I'll see the fun out. I don't say I'll
catch him for you; nobody ever yet has caught Colonel Clay; but
I'll explain how he did the trick; and that ought to be consolation
enough to a man of your means for a trifle of five thousand!"

"You are not the conventional French office-holder, M. le
Commissaire," I ventured to interpose.

"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.

"A gentleman with very long hair and an aquiline nose, dark,
strange, and handsome, called in at my department and asked if I
could tell him the name of Sir Charles Vandrift's London banker.
He said he had a sum to pay in to your credit, and asked if we
would forward it for him. I told him it was irregular for us to
receive the money, as you had no account with us, but that your
London bankers were Darby, Drummond, and Rothenberg, Limited."

"Quite right," Sir Charles murmured.

"Two days later a lady, Madame Picardet, who was a customer of ours,
brought in a good cheque for three hundred pounds, signed by a
first-rate name, and asked us to pay it in on her behalf to Darby,
Drummond, and Rothenberg's, and to open a London account with them
for her. We did so, and received in reply a cheque-book."

"From which this cheque was taken, as I learn from the number,
by telegram from London," the Commissary put in. "Also, that on
the same day on which your cheque was cashed, Madame Picardet,
in London, withdrew her balance."

"But how did the fellow get me to sign the cheque?" Sir Charles
cried. "How did he manage the card trick?"

The Commissary produced a similar card from his pocket. "Was that
the sort of thing?" he asked.

"Precisely! A facsimile."

"I thought so. Well, our Colonel, I find, bought a packet of such
cards, intended for admission to a religious function, at a shop
in the Quai Massena. He cut out the centre, and, see here--" The
Commissary turned it over, and showed a piece of paper pasted neatly
over the back; this he tore off, and there, concealed behind it, lay
a folded cheque, with only the place where the signature should be
written showing through on the face which the Seer had presented
to us. "I call that a neat trick," the Commissary remarked, with
professional enjoyment of a really good deception.

"But he burnt the envelope before my eyes," Sir Charles exclaimed.

"Pooh!" the Commissary answered. "What would he be worth as a
conjurer, anyway, if he couldn't substitute one envelope for another
between the table and the fireplace without