in's house. Sure enough, from the other
side of the locked door came the excited voice of M. Formery, crying:

"Guerchard! Guerchard! What are you doing? Let me in! Why don't you let
me in?"

Guerchard unlocked the door; and in bounced M. Formery, very excited,
very red in the face.

"Hang it all, Guerchard! What on earth have you been doing?" he cried.
"Why didn't you open the door when I knocked?"

"I didn't hear you," said Guerchard. "I wasn't in the room."

"Then where on earth have you been?" cried M. Formery.

Guerchard looked at him with a faint, ironical smile, and said in his
gentle voice, "I was following the real track of the burglars."

CHAPTER XV

THE EXAMINATION OF SONIA

M. Formery gasped: "The real track?" he muttered.

"Let me show you," said Guerchard. And he led him to the fireplace, and
showed him the opening between the two houses.

"I must go into this myself!" cried M. Formery in wild excitement.

Without more ado he began to mount the steps. Guerchard followed him.
The Duke saw their heels disappear up the steps. Then he came out of
the drawing-room and inquired for M. Gournay-Martin. He was told that
the millionaire was up in his bedroom; and he went upstairs, and
knocked at the door of it.

M. Gournay-Martin bade him enter in a very faint voice, and the Duke
found him lying on the bed. He was looking depressed, even exhausted,
the shadow of the blusterous Gournay-Martin of the day before. The rich
rosiness of his cheeks had faded to a moderate rose-pink.

"That telegram," moaned the millionaire. "It was the last straw. It has
overwhelmed me. The coronet is lost."

"What, already?" said the Duke, in a tone of the liveliest surprise.

"No, no; it's still in the safe," said the millionaire. "But it's as
good as lost--before midnight it will be lost. That fiend will get it."

"If it's in this safe now, it won't be lost before midnight," said the
Duke. "But are you sure it's there now?"

"Look for yourself," said the millionaire, taking the key of the safe
from his waistcoat pocket, and handing it to the Duke.

The Duke opened the safe. The morocco case which held the coronet lay
on the middle shell in front of him. He glanced at the millionaire, and
saw that he had closed his eyes in the exhaustion of despair. Whistling
softly, the Duke opened the case, took out the diadem, and examined it
carefully, admiring its admirable workmanship. He put it back in the
case, turn