"Therefore, dismissing all attempts at further trace of the missing lady,
I resolved to return to Vienna as soon as the business that recalled me
to Paris was concluded, and devote myself exclusively to the search after
the amorous and mysterious Monsieur.

"I did not state this determination to you, because, possibly, I might be
in error--or, if not in error, at least too sanguine in my expectations--
and it is best to avoid disappointing an honourable client.

"One thing was clear, that, at the time of the _soi-disant_ Duval's
decease, the _beau Monsieur_ was at Vienna.

"It appeared also tolerably clear that when the lady friend of the
deceased quitted Munich so privately, it was to Vienna she repaired, and
from Vienna comes the letter demanding the certificates of Madame Duval's
death. Pardon me, if I remind you of all these circumstances no doubt
fresh in your recollection. I repeat them in order to justify the
conclusions to which they led me.

"I could not, however, get permission to absent myself from Paris for the
time I might require till the end of last April. I had meanwhile sought
all private means of ascertaining what Frenchmen of rank and station were
in that capital in the autumn of 1849. Among the list of the very few
such Messieurs I fixed upon one as the most likely to be the mysterious
Achille--Achille was, indeed, his _nom de bapteme_.

"A man of intrigue--a _bonnes fortunes_--of lavish expenditure withal;
very tenacious of his dignity, and avoiding any petty scandals by which
it might be lowered; just the man who, in some passing affair of