this last was at least her third venture on
the stormy sea of matrimony. He had a fancy that some one of her
husbands might still be living and undiscovered. If this could be
proved, then her marriage to Van Tromp was no marriage, and the ducats,
dollars and diamonds bequeathed by Van Tromp to "my wife, Elizabeth,"
would instantly melt into air--into very thin air, so far as the
Countess was concerned; provided, of course, they had not actually
passed into her clutches. In fact, they were legally hers, for the will
had been admitted to probate. Those of the family objecting could offer
no valid opposition, and she had been put in possession, but, by a
strange neglect on her part, left everything intact, save a deposit of
300,000 gulden in the Bank of Amsterdam, which she secured and set out
for Naples with a new lover.

The detective--whom I will call Amstel--discovered that she had first
been married when only 15 years old to a young Swiss in Geneva, who soon
left her and fled to America. He had subsequently returned to Europe,
but Amstel was unable to discover his whereabouts or if he was living.
He suspected that the Swiss was not only alive but in communication with
the Countess, and that she, in fact, might be his legal wife. He had
followed the Countess from Naples to Paris. There she left her lover and
was now on her way to Nuremberg, as Amstel believed, to meet her first
husband, but she had arranged to remain a few days with some old friends
of hers. Every movement she made there would be watched, while Amstel,
going on to Cologne to look up some clues, intended to wait there until
informed that she had departed, and when the train arrived at Cologne he
proposed to enter it and follow my lady on, hoping to witness a meeting
between her and the much hoped-for husband. Happily we had arrived at
Cologne at this point in the story, and as Amstel was to remain here we
had to say good-bye; but for the whole twenty minutes of my stay we
walked up and down the platform talking eagerly of the case. I had
become much interested, so deeply, indeed, that had I had leisure I
certainly should have turned amateur detective and joined Amstel.

[Illustration: LONDON POLICEMAN.--ST. PAUL'S IN DISTANCE.]

The train started, and, promising to write me in New York the outcome of
the case, we shook hands warmly and parted. He wrote me twice, and the
following year I returned to Europe and met Amstel at Brussels. We had a
very deli