Of the man-servant who answered my ring, I enquired if three English gentlemen had lately arrived.  He replied that they had, and were dining.  Would Monsieur give himself the pain of waiting a few minutes, until dinner should be over?

My answer was to slip a five franc piece into the servant’s hand, and suggest that I should be shown at once into the dining-room, without waiting.

My idea was to catch my birds while they fed, and take them by surprise, lest they fly away.  If I pounced upon them in the midst of a meal, at least they could not escape before being recognised by me:  and as to what should come after recognition, the moment of meeting must decide.

The five franc piece worked like a charm.  I was promptly ushered into the dining-room, and standing just inside the door, I swept the long table with a quick, eager glance.  About eighteen or twenty people were dining, but, though several were unmistakably English, I saw no one who resembled my travelling companions.

Everyone turned and stared.  There was no face of which I had not a good view.  In a low voice I asked the servant which were the new arrivals of whom he had spoken.  He pointed them out, and added that, though they had come only that day from England, they were old patrons, well known in the house.

As I lingered, deeply disappointed, the elderly proprietor of the pension, who superintended the comfort of his guests, trotted fussily up to enquire the stranger’s business in his dining-room.  I explained that I had hoped to find friends, and was so polite that I contrived to get permission for my cabman to have a peep through the crack of the door.  When he had identified his three passengers, all hope was over.  I had followed the wrong men.

There was nothing to do but go back to the Gare du Nord, and question more porters and cabmen.  Nobody could give me any information worth having, it seemed; yet the little man must have left the station in a vehicle of some sort, as he had a great deal of small luggage.  Since I could learn nothing of him or his movements, however, and dared not, because of Maxine and the British Foreign Secretary, apply to the police for help, I determined to lose no more time before consulting a private detective, a man whose actions I could control, and to whom I need tell only as much of the truth as I chose, without fear of having the rest dragged out of me.

At my own hotel I enquired of the manager where I could find a good private detective, got an address, and motored to it, the speed bracing my nerves.  Fortunately, (as I thought then) Monsieur Anatole Girard was at home and able to receive me.  I was shown into the plain but very neat little sitting-room of a flat on the fifth floor of a big new apartment house, and was impressed at first glance by the clever face of the dark, thin Frenchman who politely bade me welcome.  It was cunning, as well as clever, no doubt:  but then, I told myself, it was the business of a person in Monsieur Girard’s profession to be cunning.