“Halloa, Algy!” he cried, grasping his hand; “what’s up?  What do these ruffians want with you?”

It began to dawn upon us, then, what Medhurst had meant by “suspecting everybody”:  the real Colonel Clay was no common adventurer, but a gentleman of birth and high connections!

The Colonel glared at us.  “This fellow declares he’s Sir Charles Vandrift,” he said sulkily.  “Though, in fact, there are two of them.  And he accuses me of forgery, fraud, and theft, Bertie.”

The attaché stared hard at us.  “This is Sir Charles Vandrift,” he replied, after a moment.  “I remember hearing him make a speech once at a City dinner.  And what charge have you to prefer, Sir Charles, against my cousin?”

“Your cousin?” Charles cried.  “This is Colonel Clay, the notorious sharper!”

The attaché smiled a gentlemanly and superior smile.  “This is Colonel Clay,” he answered, “of the Bengal Staff Corps.”

It began to strike us there was something wrong somewhere.

“But he has cheated me, all the same,” Charles said—­“at Nice two years ago, and many times since; and this very day he has tricked me out of two thousand pounds in French bank-notes, which he has now about him!”

The Colonel was speechless.  But the attaché laughed.  “What he has done to-day I don’t know,” he said; “but if it’s as apocryphal as what you say he did two years ago, you’ve a thundering bad case, sir; for he was then in India, and I was out there, visiting him.”

“Where are the two thousand pounds?” Charles cried.  “Why, you’ve got them in your hand!  You’re holding the envelope!”

The Colonel produced it.  “This envelope,” he said, “was left with me by the man with short stiff hair, who came just before you, and who announced himself as Sir Charles Vandrift.  He said he was interested in tea in Assam, and wanted me to join the board of directors of some bogus company.  These are his papers, I believe,” and he handed them to his cousin.

“Well, I’m glad the notes are safe, anyhow,” Charles murmured, in a tone of relief, beginning to smell a rat.  “Will you kindly return them to me?”

The attaché turned out the contents of the envelope.  They proved to be prospectuses of bubble companies of the moment, of no importance.

“Medhurst must have put them there,” I cried, “and decamped with the cash.”

Charles gave a groan of horror.  “And Medhurst is Colonel Clay!” he exclaimed, clapping his hand to his forehead.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” the Colonel interposed.  “I have but one personality, and no aliases.”