"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.
"It is incredible!" added the Count, as though he had just heard about the outrage for the first time.
"I can easily understand, sir, how uneasy the authorities must be," he went on, "in view of Thomas Roch's personality, and I cannot but approve of the measures taken. I need hardly say that neither the French inventor nor his
