“That the girl, in a previous situation some little time back, had been a colleague of Anatole, sir. And Anatole, as is the too frequent practice of these Frenchmen, had made love to her. In fact, they were, so I understood it, sir, formally affianced until Anatole disappeared one morning, leaving no address, and passed out of the poor girl’s life. You will readily appreciate that this discovery simplified matters considerably. The girl no longer had any affection for Anatole, but the prospect of being under the same roof with two young persons, both of whom he had led to assume⁠—”

“Great Scott! Yes, I see! It was rather like putting in a ferret to start a rabbit.”

“The principle was much the same, sir. Anatole was out of the house and in Mrs. Travers’s service within half an hour of the receipt of the information that the young person was about to arrive. A volatile man, sir. Like so many of these Frenchmen.”

“Jeeves,” I said, “this is genius of a high order.”