Indeed, as it turned out, before the preliminary investigation at Bow Street was completed (with the usual remands), Charles had been thrown into such a state of agitation that he wished he had never caught the Colonel at all.

“I wonder, Sey,” he said to me, “why I didn’t offer the rascal two thousand a year to go right off to Australia, and be rid of him for ever!  It would have been cheaper for my reputation than keeping him about in courts of law in England.  The worst of it is, when once the best of men gets into a witness-box, there’s no saying with what shreds and tatters of a character he may at last come out of it!”

“In your case, Charles,” I answered, dutifully, “there can be no such doubt; except, perhaps, as regards the Craig-Ellachie Consolidated.”

Then came the endless bother of “getting up the case” with the police and the lawyers.  Charles would have retired from it altogether by that time, but, most unfortunately, he was bound over to prosecute.  “You couldn’t take a lump sum to let me off?” he said, jokingly, to the inspector.  But I knew in my heart it was one of the “true words spoken in jest” that the proverb tells of.

Of course we could see now the whole building-up of the great intrigue.  It had been worked out as carefully as the Tichborne swindle.  Young Finglemore, as the brother of Charles’s broker, knew from the outset all about his affairs; and, after a gentle course of preliminary roguery, he laid his plans deep for a campaign against my brother-in-law.  Everything had been deliberately designed beforehand.  A place had been found for Césarine as Amelia’s maid—­needless to say, by means of forged testimonials.  Through her aid the swindler had succeeded in learning still more of the family ways and habits, and had acquired a knowledge of certain facts which he proceeded forthwith to use against us.  His first attack, as the Seer, had been cleverly designed so as to give us the idea that we were a mere casual prey; and it did not escape Charles’s notice now that the detail of getting Madame Picardet to inquire at the Crédit Marseillais about his bank had been solemnly gone through on purpose to blind us to the obvious truth that Colonel Clay was already in full possession of all such facts about us.  It was by Césarine’s aid, again, that he became possessed of Amelia’s diamonds, that he received the letter addressed to Lord Craig-Ellachie, and that he managed to dupe us over the Schloss Lebenstein business.  Nevertheless, all these things Charles determined to conceal in court; he did not give the police a single fact that would turn against either Césarine or Madame Picardet.

As for Césarine, of course, she left the house immediately after the arrest of the Colonel, and we heard of her no more till the day of the trial.

When that great day came, I never saw a more striking sight than the Old Bailey presented.  It was crammed to overflowing.  Charles arrived early, accompanied by his solicitor.  He was so white and troubled that he looked much more like prisoner than prosecutor.  Outside the court a pretty little woman stood, pale and anxious.  A respectful crowd stared at her silently.  “Who is that?” Charles asked.  Though we could both of us guess, rather than see, it was White Heather.