on entering the house, the pistol-shot had rung out and he had dashed up the stairs—this last was manifestly untrue, and in my private opinion he had been taking a little snoop round on his own hook. He had entered the boudoir to find his comrade, Numas, grappling with the desperado, a broad-shouldered man of prodigious strength. The chauffeur had flung himself upon the marauder, in spite of the fact that he was himself unarmed; but he was not in time to save his colleague from being stabbed, while he himself, though, as any one could see, a powerful man, was flung aside as though he had been a child, and dealt a blow upon the side of the jaw which had stretched him senseless on the floor.
The burglar was described as a man rather above the average height, very broad of shoulder, and dressed in ordinary street clothes, rather light in colour. He was said to have had dark hair and a black moustache—and here I began to rub my eyes. As you see, I am fairly tall, but I am by no means heavily built and of medium colouring. I was smooth-shaven, and wore tweed knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket.
A second's thought, however, showed me the reason. Chu-Chu naturally did not want me to be taken, so he had put them off as much as he could, considering that one or two others might have caught a glimpse of me. As for the fat chauffeur, he was a fool; and had been so excited that if Chu-Chu had described me as a red Indian in warpaint and feathers he would never have denied it.
The funniest part of all, though, was that the
