I couldn’t tell the chaffeur to drive me to the street and house.  That would be a stupid thing to do.  I must search the papers, and find out from them something about the neighbourhood, for there would surely be plenty of details of that sort.  And I must do this without first going back to the hotel, as it might be very difficult to get away again, once I was there.  Now, nobody knew where I was, and I was free to do as I pleased, no matter what the consequences might be afterwards.

Passing a Duval restaurant, I suddenly ordered my motor-cab to stop.  Having paid, and sent it away, I went upstairs and asked for a cup of chocolate at one of the little, deadly respectable-looking marble tables.  Also I asked to see an evening paper.

It was a shock to find Ivor’s photograph, horribly reproduced, gazing at me from the front page.  The photograph was an old one, which had been a good deal shown in shop windows, much to Ivor’s disgust, at about the time when he returned from his great expedition and published his really wonderful book.  I had seen it before I met him, and as it must have been on sale in Paris as well as London, it had been easy enough for the newspaper people to get it.  Then there came the story of the murder, built up dramatically.  Hating it, sickened by it, I yet read it all.  I knew where to go to find the house, and I knew that the murder had been committed in a back room on the top floor.  Also I saw the picture of the window with the balcony.  Ivor was supposed—­according to Girard, the detective—­to have tried in vain to escape by way of this high balcony, on hearing sounds outside the door while busy in searching the dead man’s room.  Girard said that he had seen him first, by the light of a bull’s-eye lantern, which he—­Girard—­carried, standing at bay in the open window.  There was a photograph of this window, taken from outside.  There was the balcony:  and there was the balcony of another window with another balcony just like it, on the adjoining house.  I looked at the picture, and judged that there would not be more than two feet of distance between the railings of those two balconies.

“That would be my way to get there—­if I can get there at all,” I said to myself.  But there was hardly any “if” left in my mind now.  I meant to get there.

By this time it was after five o’clock.  I left the Duval restaurant, and again took a cab.  The first thing I did was to send a petit bleu to Aunt Lilian, saying that she wasn’t to worry about me.  I’d been hipped and nervous, and had gone out to see a friend who was—­I’d just found out—­staying in Paris.  Perhaps I should stop with the friend to dinner; but at latest I should be back by nine or ten o’clock.  That would save a bother at the hotel (for Aunt Lilian knew I had heaps of American friends who came every year to Paris), yet no one would know where to search for me, even if they were inclined.

Next, I drove to a street near the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and dismissed my cab.  I asked for no directions, but after one or two mistakes, found the street I wanted.  Instead of going to the house of the murder, I passed on to the next house on the left—­the house of the balcony almost adjoining the dead man’s.