“Sergeant, you will take this order, and convey Number Two Hundred and Seven to the Bicetre, there to remain till Thursday next, when he will be drafted back to Toulon by the convict train, which leaves two hours after midnight.  Monsieur Mueller, the Government is indebted to you for the assistance you have rendered the executive in this matter.  You are probably aware that the prisoner is a notorious criminal, guilty of one proved murder, and several cases of forgery, card-sharping, and the like.  The Government is also indebted to Monsieur Marmot” (here he inclined his head to the bald-headed Chef), “who has acted with his usual zeal and intelligence.”

Monsieur Marmot, murmuring profuse thanks, bowed and bowed again, and followed Monsieur le Prefet obsequiously to the door.  On the threshold, the great little man paused, turned, and said very quietly:  “You understand, sergeant, this prisoner does not escape again;” and so vanished; leaving Monsieur Marmot still bowing in the doorway.

Then the sergeant hurried on Lenoir’s coat and waistcoat, clapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, thrust his hat on his head, and prepared to be gone; Monsieur, the bald-headed, looking on, meanwhile, with the utmost complacency, as if taking to himself all the merit of discovery and capture.

“Pardon, Messieurs,” said the serjeant, when all was ready.  “Pardon—­but here is a fellow for whom I am responsible now, and who must be strictly looked after.  I shall have to put a gendarme on the box from here to the Bicetre, instead of you two gentlemen.”

“All right, mon ami” said Mueller.  “I suppose we should not have been admitted if we had gone with you?”

“Nay, I could pass you in, Messieurs, if you cared to see the affair to the end, and followed in another fiacre.”

So we said we would see it to the end, and following the prisoner and his guard through all the rooms and corridors by which we had come, picked up a second cab on the Quai des Orfevres, just outside the Prefecture of Police.

It was now close upon midnight.  The sky was flecked with driving clouds.  The moon had just risen above the towers of Notre Dame.  The quays were silent and deserted.  The river hurried along, swirling and turbulent.  The sergeant’s cab led the way, and the driver, instead of turning back towards the Pont Neuf, followed the line of the quays along the southern bank of the Ile de la Cite; passing the Morgue—­a mass of sinister shadow; passing the Hotel Dieu; traversing the Parvis Notre Dame; and making for the long bridge, then called the Pont Louis Philippe, which connects the two river islands with the northern half of Paris.

“It is a wild-looking night,” said Mueller, as we drove under the mountainous shadow of Notre Dame and came out again in sight of the river.

“And it is a wild business to be out upon,” I added.  “I wonder if this is the end of it?”