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 the chap's duds. What was he wearing when last you saw him?"

I gave him a full account of Michel Grey and his clothes, and he went away. Twenty-four hours after I got a line from him:

"Come up to the Rue de la Loire. I have found your man."

You may imagine that I didn't lose much time in doing as he asked me. While I couldn't really believe that the thing was to end in the simple way his letter made out, none the less the fact that we stood a good chance now of putting our hands on the ten thousand dollars came home to me.

"Bigg," said I, "you'll be set up for a twelve-month, and Sir Nicolas 'll be off to New York to marry a Yankee—that is, if he doesn't close on that pretty bit of goods up at the Hôtel de Lille. Was there ever such a town?"

I found Jim sitting on a dirty bed in a dirty little house near the boulevard end of the street he had named. He didn't look at all hopeful, as I expected he would, and the cigar that he held in his hand had gone out.

Well," says he, "you got my letter?"

"Why should I be here if I hadn't?" says I.

"Ah, true!" he went on; "and I may as well tell you at once—I believe your man's at the Maison d'Or, up in Montmartre."