“Very well.  Let us proceed in that way.  Prepare the warrants,” said the Judge, turning to his clerk.  “And you,” he went on, addressing M. Flocon, “dear colleague, will you see to their execution?  Madame is at the Hotel Madagascar; that will be easy.  The Italian Ripaldi we shall hear of through your inspector Block.  As for the maid, Hortense Petitpre, we must search for her.  That too, sir, you will of course undertake?”

“I will charge myself with it, certainly.  My man should be here by now, and I will instruct him at once.  Ask for him,” said M. Flocon to the guard whom he called in.

“The inspector is there,” said the guard, pointing to the outer room.  “He has just returned.”

“Returned?  You mean arrived.”

“No, monsieur, returned.  It is Block, who left an hour or more ago.”

“Block?  Then something has happened—­he has some special information, some great news!  Shall we see him, M. le Juge?”

When Block appeared, it was evident that something had gone wrong with him.  His face wore a look of hot, flurried excitement, and his manner was one of abject, cringing self-abasement.

“What is it?” asked the little Chief, sharply.  “You are alone.  Where is your man?”

“Alas, monsieur! how shall I tell you?  He has gone—­disappeared!  I have lost him!”

“Impossible!  You cannot mean it!  Gone, now, just when we most want him?  Never!”

“It is so, unhappily.”

“Idiot! Triple idiot!  You shall be dismissed, discharged from this hour.  You are a disgrace to the force.”  M. Flocon raved furiously at his abashed subordinate, blaming him a little too harshly and unfairly, forgetting that until quite recently there had been no strong suspicion against the Italian.  We are apt at times to expect others to be intuitively possessed of knowledge that has only come to us at a much later date.

“How was it?  Explain.  Of course you have been drinking.  It is that, or your great gluttony.  You were beguiled into some eating-house.”

“Monsieur, you shall hear the exact truth.  When we started more than an hour ago, our fiacre took the usual route, by the Quais and along the riverside.  My gentleman made himself most pleasant”

“No doubt,” growled the Chief.

“Offered me an excellent cigar, and talked—­not about the affair, you understand—­but of Paris, the theatres, the races, Longchamps, Auteuil, the grand restaurants.  He knew everything, all Paris, like his pocket.  I was much surprised, but he told me his business often brought him here.  He had been employed to follow up several great Italian criminals, and had made a number of important arrests in Paris.”

“Get on, get on! come to the essential.”

“Well, in the middle of the journey, when we were about the Pont Henri Quatre, he said, ’Figure to yourself, my friend, that it is now near noon, that nothing has passed my lips since before daylight at Laroche.  What say you?  Could you eat a mouthful, just a scrap on the thumb-nail?  Could you?’”