These facts having been duly recorded, the banqueters were informed that they might depart, which they did in silence, the spirit of festivity having vanished.

Inquiries were now made in the hotel about Kittredge’s movements, but nothing came to light except the statement of a big, liveried doorkeeper, who remembered distinctly the sudden appearance at about nine o’clock of a young man who was very anxious to get a cab.  The storm was then at its height, and the doorkeeper had advised the young man to wait, feeling sure the tempest would cease as suddenly as it had begun; but the latter, apparently ill at ease, had insisted that he must go at once; he said he would find a cab himself, and turning up his collar so that his face was almost hidden, and drawing his thin overcoat tight about his evening dress, he had dashed into the black downpour, and a moment later the doorkeeper, surprised at this eccentric behavior, saw the young man hail a passing fiacre and drive away.

At this point in the investigation the unexpected happened.  One of the policemen burst in to say that some one had called for the lady’s cloak and bag.  It was a young man with a check for the things; he was waiting for them now in the cloakroom and he seemed nervous.

“Well?” snapped the commissary.

“I was going to arrest him, sir,” replied the other eagerly, “but——­”

“Will you never learn your business?” stormed Pougeot.  “Does Gibelin know this?”

“Yes, sir, we just told him.”

“Send Joseph here—­quick.”  And to the waiter when he appeared:  “Tell the woman in the cloakroom to let this young man have the things.  Don’t let him see that you are suspicious, but take a good look at him.”

“Yes, sir.  And then?”

“And then nothing.  Leave him to Gibelin.”

A moment later Joseph returned to say that he had absolutely recognized the young man downstairs as the one who had passed him in the corridor, Francois was positive he was the missing banquet guest.  In other words, they were facing this remarkable situation:  that the cloak and leather bag left by the mysterious woman of Number Six had now been called for by the very man against whom suspicion was rapidly growing—­Lloyd Kittredge himself.

CHAPTER IV

“IN THE NAME OF THE LAW”

When Kittredge, with cloak and bag, stepped into his waiting cab and, for the second time on this villainous night, started down the Champs Elysees he was under no illusion as to his personal safety.  He knew that he would be followed and presently arrested, he knew this without even glancing behind him, he had understood the whispers and searching looks in the hotel; it was certain that his moments of liberty were numbered, so he must make a clean job of this thing that had to be done while still there was time.  He had told the driver to cross the bridge and go down the Boulevard St. Germain, but now he changed the order and, half opening the door, he bade the man turn to the right and drive on to the Rue de Vaugirard.  He knew that this was a long, ill-lighted street, one of the longest streets in Paris.