"Ugh, I hate you," she hissed.
"Hate away, but speak."
"So, countess," said the King, "you wanted to arrest and imprison the doctor?"
"Yes."
"And the casket?"
"How could I leave that in his hands?" muttered the lady, in a hollow voice.
"Tell me about that," said the King forgetting etiquette and kneeling beside the countess.
"I learnt that Gilbert, who had in sixteen years been twice back in France, purposed another voyage, to settle here. Chief of Police Crosne informed me that he had on a previous return bought an estate at Villers Cotterets: that his farmer enjoyed his trust, and I suspected that the casket with his papers was at his house."
"How could you suspect that?"
"I—I went to Mesmer's and had myself put into a trance, when, my own medium, I wrote down the revelations I wanted."