“Sergeant Mazeroux, whom Caceres denounced, with corroborating evidence, as an accomplice of Arsene Lupin, is in prison.”

“Sergeant Mazeroux is a model of professional honour, Monsieur le President.  I owed his assistance only to the fact that I was helping the police.  I was accepted as an auxiliary and more or less patronized by Monsieur le Prefet.  Mazeroux thwarted me in anything I tried to do that was at all legal.  And he would have been the first to take me by the collar if he had been so instructed.  I ask for his release.”

“Oho!”

“Monsieur le President, your consent will be an act of justice and I beg you to grant it.  Sergeant Mazerou shall leave France.  He can be charged by the government with a secret mission in the south of Morocco, with the rank of colonial inspector.”

“Agreed,” said Valenglay, laughing heartily.  And he added, “My dear Prefect, once we depart from the strictly lawful path, there’s no saying where we come to.  But the end justifies the means; and the end which we have in view is to have done with this loathsome Mornington case.”

“This evening everything will be settled,” said Don Luis.

“I hope so.  Our men are on the track.”

“They are on the track, but they have to check that track at every town, at every village, by inquiries made of every peasant they meet; they have to find out if the motor has not branched off somewhere; and they are wasting time.  I shall go straight for the scoundrel.”

“By what miracle?”

“That must be my secret for the present, Monsieur le President.”

“Very well.  Is there anything you want?”

“This map of France.”

“Take it.”

“And a couple of revolvers.”

“Monsieur le Prefet will be good enough to ask his inspectors for two revolvers and to give them to you.  Is that all?  Any money?”

“No, thank you, Monsieur le President.  I always carry a useful fifty thousand francs in my pocket-book, in case of need.”

“In that case,” said the Prefect of Police, “I shall have to send some one with you to the lockup.  I presume your pocket-book was among the things taken from you.”

Don Luis smiled: 

“Monsieur le Prefet, the things that people can take from me are never of the least importance.  My pocket-book is at the lockup, as you say.  But the money—­”

He raised his left leg, took his boot in his hands and gave a slight twist to the heel.  There was a little click, and a sort of double drawer shot out of the front of the sole.  It contained two sheafs of bank notes and a number of diminutive articles, such as a gimlet, a watch spring, and some pills.

“The wherewithal to escape,” he said, “to live and—­to die.  Good-bye, Monsieur le President.”

In the hall M. Desmalions told the inspectors to let their prisoner go free.  Don Luis asked: 

“Monsieur le Prefet, did Deputy Chief Weber give you any particulars about the brute’s car?”