“Your Grace!” exclaimed the detective in amazement—­“pray do not stand, I beg you.  Sit down, lie down, anything rather than stand.”

The Archbishop took off his mitre and laid it wearily on the whisker-stand.

“You are here in regard to the Prince of Wurttemberg.”

The Archbishop started and crossed himself.  Was the man a magician?

“Yes,” he said, “much depends on getting him back.  But I have only come to say this:  my sister is desirous of seeing you.  She is coming here.  She has been extremely indiscreet and her fortune hangs upon the Prince.  Get him back to Paris or I fear she will be ruined.”

The Archbishop regained his mitre, uncrossed himself, wrapped his cloak about him, and crawled stealthily out on his hands and knees, purring like a cat.

The face of the Great Detective showed the most profound sympathy.  It ran up and down in furrows.  “So,” he muttered, “the sister of the Archbishop, the Countess of Dashleigh!” Accustomed as he was to the life of the aristocracy, even the Great Detective felt that there was here intrigue of more than customary complexity.

There was a loud rapping at the door.

There entered the Countess of Dashleigh.  She was all in furs.

She was the most beautiful woman in England.  She strode imperiously into the room.  She seized a chair imperiously and seated herself on it, imperial side up.

She took off her tiara of diamonds and put it on the tiara-holder beside her and uncoiled her boa of pearls and put it on the pearl-stand.

“You have come,” said the Great Detective, “about the Prince of Wurttemberg.”

“Wretched little pup!” said the Countess of Dashleigh in disgust.

So!  A further complication!  Far from being in love with the Prince, the Countess denounced the young Bourbon as a pup!

“You are interested in him, I believe.”

“Interested!” said the Countess.  “I should rather say so.  Why, I bred him!”

“You which?” gasped the Great Detective, his usually impassive features suffused with a carmine blush.

“I bred him,” said the Countess, “and I’ve got 10,000 pounds upon his chances, so no wonder I want him back in Paris.  Only listen,” she said, “if they’ve got hold of the Prince and cut his tail or spoiled the markings of his stomach it would be far better to have him quietly put out of the way here.”

The Great Detective reeled and leaned up against the side of the room.  So!  The cold-blooded admission of the beautiful woman for the moment took away his breath!  Herself the mother of the young Bourbon, misallied with one of the greatest families of Europe, staking her fortune on a Royalist plot, and yet with so instinctive a knowledge of European politics as to know that any removal of the hereditary birth-marks of the Prince would forfeit for him the sympathy of the French populace.