“But you are going, Monsieur Hanaud?” Thevenet asked in distress. “I am desolated. I have broken into a conversation like a clumsy fellow.”
“Not at all,” Hanaud replied. To Frobisher his patience was as remarkable as Maurice Thevenet’s impudence. “We were idly watching a film which I think is a little tedious.”
“Then, since you are not busy I beg for your indulgence. One little moment that is all. I should so dearly love to be able to say to my friends, ‘I sat in the cinema with Monsieur Hanaud—yes, actually I’—and asked for his advice.”
Hanaud sat down again upon his chair.
“And upon what subject can you, of whom Monsieur Girardot speaks so highly, want my advice?” Hanaud asked with a laugh.
The eternal ambition of the provincial was tormenting the eager youth. To get to Paris—all was in that! Fortune, reputation, a life of colour. A word from Monsieur Hanaud and a way would open. He would work night and day to justify that word.
“Monsieur, all I can promise is that when the time comes I shall remember you. But that promise I make now with my whole heart,” said Hanaud warmly, and with a bow he moved away.
Maurice Thevenet watched him go.
“What a man!” Maurice Thevenet went on enthusiastically. “I would not like to try to keep any secrets from him. No, indeed!” Jim had heard that sentiment before on other lips and with a greater sympathy. “I did not understand at all what he had in his mind when he staged that little scene with Francine Rollard. But something, Monsieur. Oh, you may be sure. Something wise. And that search through the treasure room! How quick and complete! No doubt while we searched Mademoiselle Upcott’s bedroom, he was just as quick and complete in going through her sitting-room. But he found nothing. No, nothing.”
He waited for Jim to corroborate him, but Jim only said “Oho!”
But Thevenet was not to be extinguished.
“I shall tell you what struck me, Monsieur. He was following out no suspicions; isn’t that so? He was detached. He was gathering up every trifle, on the chance that each one might sometime fit in with another and at last a whole picture be composed. An artist! There was a letter, for instance, which Mademoiselle Harlowe handed to him, one of those deplorable letters which have disgraced us here—you remember that letter, Monsieur?”
“Aha!” said Frobisher, quite in the style of Hanaud. “But I see that this film is coming to its wedding bells. So I shall wish you a good evening.”
Frobisher bowed and left Maurice Thevenet to dream of success in Paris. He strolled between the groups of spectators to the entrance and thence into the street. He walked to the arch of the Porte Guillaume and turned into the Rue de la Liberté. The provincial towns go to bed early and the street so busy throughout the day was like the street of a deserted city. A couple of hundred yards on, he was startled to find Hanaud, sprung from nowhere, walking at his side.
“So my young friend, the secretary engaged you when I had gone?” he said.
“Maurice Thevenet,” said Jim, “may be as the Commissary says a young man of a surprising intelligence, but to tell you the truth, I find him a very intrusive fellow. First of all he wanted to know if you had discovered anything in Ann Upcott’s sitting-room, and then what Miss Harlowe’s anonymous letter was about.”
Hanaud looked at Jim with interest.
“Yes, he is anxious to learn, that young man, Girardot is right. He will go far. And how did you answer him?”
“I said ‘Oho’! first, and then I said ‘Aha’! just like a troublesome friend of mine when I ask him a simple question which he does not mean to answer.”
Hanaud laughed heartily.
“And you did very well,” he said. “Come, let us turn into this little street upon the right. It will take us to our destination.”
“Wait!” whispered Jim eagerly. “Don’t cross the road for a moment. Listen!”
Hanaud obeyed at once; and both men stood and listened in the empty street.
“Not a sound,” said Hanaud.
“No! That is what troubles me!” Jim whispered importantly. “A minute ago there were footsteps behind us. Now that we have stopped they have stopped too. Let us go on quite straight for a moment or two.”
“But certainly my friend,” said Hanaud.
“And let us not talk either,” Jim urged.
“Not a single word,” said Hanaud.
They moved forward again and behind them once more footsteps rang upon the pavement.
“What did I tell you?” asked Jim, taking Hanaud by the arm.
“That we would neither of us speak,” Hanaud replied. “And lo! you have spoken!”
“But why? Why have I spoken? Be serious, Monsieur,” Jim shook his arm indignantly. “We are being followed.”
Hanaud stopped dead and gazed in steady admiration at his junior colleague.
“Oh!” he whispered. “You have discovered that? Yes, it is true. We are being followed by one of my men who sees to it that we are not followed.”
Frobisher shook Hanaud’s arm off indignantly. He drew himself up stiffly. Then he saw Hanaud’s mouth twitching and he understood that he was looking “proper.”
“Oh, let us go and find Jean Cladel,” he said with a laugh and he crossed the road. They passed into a network of small, mean streets. There was not a soul abroad. The houses were shrouded in darkness. The only sounds they heard were the clatter of their own footsteps on the pavement and the fainter noise of the man who followed them. Hanaud turned to the left into a short passage and stopped before a little house with a shuttered shop front.
“This is the place,” he said in a low voice and he pressed the button in the pillar of the door. The bell rang with a shrill sharp whirr just the other side of the panels.
“We may have to wait a moment if he has gone to bed,” said Hanaud, “since he has no servant
