“Am I?  Ha!  Through?  I want to tell you, my friends, that I’ve barely begun.”

“My dear Paul,” reasoned the commissary, “what can you do off the force?  How can you hope to succeed single-handed, when it was hard to succeed with the whole prefecture to help you?”

Coquenil paused, and then said mysteriously:  “That’s the point, did they help me?  Or hinder me?  One thing is certain:  that if I work alone, I won’t have to make daily reports for the guidance of some one higher up.”

“You don’t mean—­” began the commissary with a startled look.

M. Paul nodded gravely.  “I certainly do—­there’s no other way of explaining the facts.  I was discharged for a trivial offense just as I had evidence that would prove this American innocent.  They don’t want him proved innocent.  And they are so afraid I will discover the truth that they let the whole investigation wait while Gibelin shadows me.  Well, he’s off my track now, and by to-morrow they can search Paris with a fine-tooth comb and they won’t find a trace of Paul Coquenil.”

“You’re going away?”

“No.  I’m going to—­to disappear,” smiled the detective.  “I shall work in the dark, and, when the time comes, I’ll strike in the dark.”

“You’ll need money?”

Coquenil shook his head.  “I have all the money I want, and know where to go for more.  Besides, my old partner here is going to lay off for a few weeks and work with me.  Eh, Papa Tignol?”

Tignol’s eyes twinkled.  “A few weeks or a few months is all the same to me.  I’ll follow you to the devil, M. Paul.”

“That’s right, that’s where we’re going.  And when I need you, Lucien, you’ll hear from me.  I wanted you to understand the situation.  I may have to call on you suddenly; you may get some strange message by some queer messenger.  Look at this ring.  Will you know it?  A brown stone marked with Greek characters.  It’s debased Greek.  The stone was dug up near Smyrna, where it had lain for fourteen hundred years.  It’s a talisman.  You’ll listen to anyone who brings you this ring, old friend?  Eh?”

Pougeot grasped M. Paul’s hand and wrung it affectionately.  “And honor his request to the half of my kingdom,” he laughed, but his eyes were moist.  He had a vivid impression that his friend was entering on a way of great and unknown peril.

“Well,” said Coquenil cheerfully, “I guess that’s all for to-night.  There’s a couple of hours’ work still for Papa Tignol and me, but it’s half past two, Lucien, and, unless you think of something——­”

“No, except to wish you luck,” replied the commissary, and he started to go.

“Wait,” put in Tignol, “there’s something I think of.  You forget I’ve been playing the flute to-day.”

“Ah, yes, of course!  Any news?” questioned the detective.

The old man rubbed his nose meditatively.  “My news is asleep in the next room.  If it wasn’t so late I’d bring him in.  He’s a little shrimp of a photographer, but—­he’s seen your murderer, all right.”