Seven Duponts. With this troupe she toured all over Europe.
Bien! About ten years ago, she went out to New York as a singer,
under the name of Marcelle Blondinet, and appeared at various
second-class theatres in the United States and Canada. Then we
lose track of her for some years until 1913, the year before the
war, when the famous Oriental dancer, Nur-el-Din, who has made a
grand success by the splendor of her dresses in America and
Canada, appears at Brussels, scores a triumph and buys a fine
mansion in the outskirts of the capital. She produces herself at
Paris, Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles, Madrid, Milan and Rome, but
her home in Brussels, always she returns there, your understand
me, hein? La petite Marcelle of The Seven Duponts, Marcelle
Blondinet of the cafe chantant, has blossomed out into a star of
the first importance."

The Colonel paused and cleared his throat.

"To buy a mansion in Brussels, to run a large and splendid
troupe, requires money. It is the men who pay for these things,
you would say. Quite right, but listen who were the friends of
Madame Nur-el-Din. Bischoffsberg, the German millionaire of
Antwerp, von Wurzburg, of Berne... ah ha! you know that
gentleman, mon cher?" he turned, chuckling, to the Chief who
nodded his acquiescence; "Prince Meddelin of the German Embassy
in Paris and administrator of the German Secret Service funds in
France, and so on and so on. I will not fatigue you with the
list. The direct evidence is coming now.

"When the war broke out in August, 1914, Madame, after finishing
her summer season in Brussels, was resting in her Brussels
mansion. What becomes of her? She vanishes."

"She told Samuel, the fellow who runs the Palaceum, that she
escaped from Brussels!" interposed the Chief.

The Frenchman threw his hands above his head.

"Escaped, escaped? Ah, oui, par exemple, in a German Staff car.
As I have told my colleague here," he went on, addressing the
Admiral, "she escaped to Metz, the headquarters of the Army Group
commanded by the... the... how do you say? the Prince Imperial?"

"The Crown Prince," rectified the Chief.

"Ah, oui,--the Crown Prince. Messieurs, we have absolute
testimony that this woman lived for nearly two years either in
Metz or Berlin, and further, that at Metz, the Crown Prince was a
constant visitor at her house. She was one of the ladies who
nearly precipitated a definite rupture between the Crown Prince
and his wife. Mon Admiral," he w