“Twenty francs,” grinned the driver, a red-faced Norman with rugged shoulders; “he won’t get past, you can sleep on your two ears for that.”

Meantime, Tignol had returned with one of his men, who was straightway stationed in the courtyard.

“Now,” went on Coquenil, “you and I will take the exit on the Place de la Madeleine.  It’s four to one he comes out there.”

“Why is it?” grumbled Tignol.

“Never mind why,” answered the other brusquely, and he walked ahead, frowning, until they reached an imposing entrance with stately palms on the white stone floor and the glimpse of an imposing stairway.

“Of course, of course,” muttered M. Paul.  “To think that I had forgotten it!  After all, one loses some of the old tricks in two years.”

“Remember that blackmail case,” whispered Tignol, “when we sneaked the countess out by the Rue de l’Arcade?  Eh, eh, eh, what a close shave!”

Coquenil nodded.  “Here’s one of the same kind.”  He glanced at a sober coupe from which a lady, thickly veiled, was descending, and he followed her with a shrug as she entered the house.

“To think that some of the smartest women in Paris come here!” he mused.  Then to Tignol:  “How about that telegram?”

The old man stroked his rough chin.  “The clerk gave me a copy of it, all right, when I showed my papers.  Here it is and—­much good it will do us.”

He handed M. Paul a telegraph blank on which was written: 

   DUBOIS, 20 Rue Chalgrin.

   Special bivouac amateur bouillon danger must have Sahara easily
   Groener arms impossible.

   FELIX.

“I see,” nodded Coquenil; “it ought to be an easy cipher.  We must look up Dubois,” and he put the paper in his pocket.  “Better go in now and locate this fellow.  Look over the two courtyards, have a word with the doorkeepers, see if he really went into the hairdresser’s; if not, find out where he did go.  Tell our men at the other exits not to let a yellow dog slip past without sizing it up for Groener.”

“I’ll tell ’em,” grinned the old man, and he slouched away.

For five minutes Coquenil waited at the Place de la Madeleine exit and it seemed a long time.  Two ladies arrived in carriages and passed inside quickly with exaggerated self-possession.  A couple came down the stairs smiling and separated coldly at the door.  Then a man came out alone, and the detective’s eyes bored into him.  It wasn’t Groener.

Finally, Tignol returned and reported all well at the other exits; no one had gone out who could possibly be the wood carver.  Groener had not been near the hairdresser; he had gone straight through into the second courtyard, and from there he had hurried up the main stairway.

“The one that leads to Madam Cecile’s?” questioned M. Paul.

“Yes, but Cecile has only two floors.  There are two more above hers.”