“Not one,” Charles answered.  “He produced some himself, when he was Medhurst the detective.  But he pocketed them at once; and we never recovered them.”

“Could you get any?” the doctor asked.  “Did you note the name and address of the photographer?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Charles replied.  “But the police at Nice showed us two.  Perhaps we might borrow them.”

“Until we get them,” Dr. Beddersley said, “I don’t know that we can do anything.  But if you can once give me two distinct photographs of the real man, no matter how much disguised, I could tell you whether they were taken from one person; and, if so, I think I could point out certain details in common which might aid us to go upon.”

All this was at lunch.  Amelia’s niece, Dolly Lingfield, was there, as it happened; and I chanced to note a most guilty look stealing over her face all the while we were talking.  Suspicious as I had learned to become by this time, however, I did not suspect Dolly of being in league with Colonel Clay; but, I confess, I wondered what her blush could indicate.  After lunch, to my surprise, Dolly called me away from the rest into the library.  “Uncle Seymour,” she said to me—­the dear child calls me Uncle Seymour, though of course I am not in any way related to her—­“I have some photographs of Colonel Clay, if you want them.”

“You?” I cried, astonished.  “Why, Dolly, how did you get them?”

For a minute or two she showed some little hesitation in telling me.  At last she whispered, “You won’t be angry if I confess?” (Dolly is just nineteen, and remarkably pretty.)

“My child,” I said, “why should I be angry?  You may confide in me implicitly.” (With a blush like that, who on earth could be angry with her?)

“And you won’t tell Aunt Amelia or Aunt Isabel?” she inquired somewhat anxiously.

“Not for worlds,” I answered. (As a matter of fact, Amelia and Isabel are the last people in the world to whom I should dream of confiding anything that Dolly might tell me.)

“Well, I was stopping at Seldon, you know, when Mr. David Granton was there,” Dolly went on; “—­or, rather, when that scamp pretended he was David Granton; and—­and—­you won’t be angry with me, will you?—­one day I took a snap-shot with my kodak at him and Aunt Amelia!”

“Why, what harm was there in that?” I asked, bewildered.  The wildest stretch of fancy could hardly conceive that the Honourable David had been flirting with Amelia.

Dolly coloured still more deeply.  “Oh, you know Bertie Winslow?” she said.  “Well, he’s interested in photography—­and—­and also in me.  And he’s invented a process, which isn’t of the slightest practical use, he says; but its peculiarity is, that it reveals textures.  At least, that’s what Bertie calls it.  It makes things come out so.  And he gave me some plates of his own for my kodak—­half-a-dozen or more, and—­I took Aunt Amelia with them.”