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for the past eighteen months or so he found himself in very low water, being in hiding as he was, he did not know to whom to apply for money for fear of being recognized and the scandal recommenced. Last November he was struck by a bright idea — He bethought himself of the Velasquez which he had so often seen and lived with at Duc Robert's Château, and he had learnt that, in the Duc Robert's death in 1907, the picture had gone to Prince Elias, a young man whose tastes lay in sport and soldiering, rather than in art. He knew that the family lawyer of the Bourbon Parme had great influence over Elias, and he also knew that a friend of his own, named Mr Z, was on very intimate terms with the lawyer, and that furthermore Z was a very shrewd man of business. He accordingly put himself in Z's hands and explained the whole situation to him. Z saw the possibility of making some money for himself and for X, and come to me in Paris with a photograph of the picture and told me the story, which seemed to me to hang well together. I therefore