go over your schooner?"

"Assuredly not, sir. My vessel is at your disposal from peaks to
bilges. Only I should like to know why all the vessels which happen to
be in Pamlico Sound to-day are being subjected to this formality."

"I see no reason why you should not be informed, Monsieur the Count,"
replied the officer. "The governor of North Carolina has been apprised
that Healthful House has been broken into and two persons kidnapped,
and the authorities merely wish to satisfy themselves that the persons
carried off have not been embarked during the night."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed the Count, feigning surprise. "And who are
the persons who have thus disappeared from Healthful House?"

"An inventor--a madman--and his keeper."

"A madman, sir? Do you, may I ask, refer to the Frenchman, Thomas
Roch?"

"The same."

"The Thomas Roch whom I saw yesterday during my visit to the
establishment--whom I questioned in presence of the director--who
was seized with a violent paroxysm just as Captain Spade and I were
leaving?"

The officer observed the stranger with the keenest attention, in an
effort to surprise anything suspicious in his attitude or remarks.