Phinuit gave his whiskey and soda a reminiscent grin.

“And we thought we were being bright, at that!  We’d figured every move to the third decimal point.  The only uncertain factor in our calculations, as we thought, was you.  But with you disposed of, dead to the world, and Madame de Montalais off in another part of the chateau calling the servants to help, leaving her rooms wide open to us—­the job didn’t take five minutes.  The way de Lorgnes made that safe give up all its secrets, you’d have thought he had raised it by hand!  We stuffed the loot into a grip I’d brought for the purpose, and beat it—­slipped out through the drawing-room window one second before Madame de Montalais came back with that doddering footman of hers.  But they never even looked our way.  I bet they never knew there’d been a robbery till the next morning.  Do I lose?”

“No, monsieur; you are quite right.”

“Well, then:  We had left our machine—­we had driven over from Millau—­just over the brow of the hill, standing on the down-grade, headed for Nant, with the gears meshed in third, so she would start without a sound as soon as we released the emergency brake.  But when we got there, it wasn’t.  The frantic way we looked for it made me think of you pawing that table for your candle, after de Lorgnes had lifted it behind your back.  And then of a sudden they jumped us, Popinot and his crew; though we didn’t know who in hell; it might have been the chateau people.  In fact, at first I thought it was....

“I lost de Lorgnes in the shuffle immediately, never did know what had become of him till we got Liane’s wire this morning.  I was having all I could do to take care of myself, thank you.  I happened to be carrying the grip, and that helped a bit.  Somebody’s head got in the way of its swings, and I guess the guy hasn’t forgotten it yet.  Then I slipped through their fingers—­I’ll never tell you how; it was black as pitch, that night—­and beat it blind.  I’d lost my flashlamp and had no more idea where I was heading than an owl at noon of a sunny day.  But they—­the Popinot outfit—­seemed to be able to see in the dark all right; or else I was looney with fright.  Every once in a while somebody or something would make a pass at me in the night, and I’d duck and double and run another way.

“After a while I found myself climbing a steep, rocky slope, and guessed it must be the cliff behind the chateau.  It was a sort of zig-zag path, which I couldn’t see, only guess at.  I was scared stiff; but they were still after me, or I thought they were, so I floundered on.  The path, if it was a path, was slimy with mud, and about every third step I’d slip and go sprawling.  I can’t tell you how many times I felt my legs shoot out into nothing, and dug my fingers into the muck, or broke my nails on rocks and caught clumps of grass with my teeth, to keep from going over ... and all the while that all-gone feeling in the pit of my stomach....