"If four francs seventy will do it--my worldly possessions until next
pay-day----"
"No, no, this is quite different." He drew Martin outside into the
street and whispered. "To-night, as I happen to know, an Englishman
walking along a back street by the Place Pigalle was followed by two
_apaches_."
"A week-end tripper, or somebody with a flourish at each end of his
name?"
"Somebody worth while. Now I want to know particularly if anything
happened."
Martin nodded in full understanding. "Come along to the office about ten
to-morrow morning, and I'll tell you if anything's been fired in from
the _gendarmeries_ or the hospitals. What did you say the man's name
was?"
Dean shook his head.
"Imitaciong oyster?" commented Martin cheerfully. "Very well, see you
to-morrow. Meanwhile, be good. Flee the giddy lure. Go home to your
little bed and sleep sweet." There was seriousness under his
good-natured banter. "Come along and I'll see you as far as the
bullyvards."
Arthur Dean went with him, but did not return to the Grand Hotel. He
found a small hotel for the night, and next morning at ten o'clock he
was at the office of the _Europe Chronicle_, an important daily paper
published simultaneously in Paris, Frankfort, and Florence.
Martin came out from the news room into the adjoining ante-room with a
slip of "flimsy" in his hand.
"Was your man hefty with the shillelagh?" he asked.
"He carried a big, gold-mounted stick.
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