“Yes, I think he did.  He took something from his pocket.”

“Without the lady’s knowledge?”

“Yes, she didn’t see.”

Don Luis mastered his horror.  After all it was impossible that the villain had poisoned Florence in that way, at that place, without anything to warrant so great a hurry.  No, it was more likely that he had employed a narcotic, a drug of some sort which would dull Florence’s brain and make her incapable of noticing by what new roads and through what towns he was taking her.

“And then,” he repeated, “she decided to step in?”

“Yes; and he shut the door and got into the driver’s seat.  I went away then.”

“Before knowing which direction they took?”

“Yes.”

“Did you suspect on the way that they thought that they were being followed?”

“Certainly.  He did nothing but put his head out of the window.”

“Did the lady cry out at all?”

“No.”

“Would you know him again if you saw him?”

“No, I’m sure I shouldn’t.  At Versailles it was dark.  And this morning I was too far away.  Besides, it’s curious, but the first time he struck me as very tall, and this morning, on the contrary, he looked quite a short man, as though bent in two.  I can’t understand it at all.”

Don Luis reflected.  It seemed to him that he had asked all the necessary questions.  Moreover, a gig drawn by a quick-trotting horse was approaching the crossroads.  There were two others behind it.  And the groups of peasants were now quite near.  He must finish the business.

He said to the chauffeur: 

“I can see by your face that you intend to talk about me.  Don’t do that, my man:  it would be foolish of you.  Here’s a thousand-franc note for you.  Only, if you blab, I’ll make you repent it.  That’s all I have to say to you.”

He turned to Davanne, whose machine was beginning to block the traffic, and asked: 

“Can we start?”

“Whenever you like.  Where are we going?”

Paying no attention to the movements of the people coming from every side, Don Luis unfolded his map of France and spread it out before him.  He experienced a few seconds of anxiety at seeing the complicated tangle of roads and picturing the infinite number of places to which the villain might carry Florence.  But he pulled himself together.  He did not allow himself to hesitate.  He refused even to reflect.

He was determined to find out, and to find out everything, at once, without clues, without useless consideration, simply by the marvellous intuition which invariably guided him at any crisis in his life.

And his self-respect also required that he should give Davanne his answer without delay, and that the disappearance of those whom he was pursuing should not seem to embarrass him.  With his eyes glued to the map, he placed one finger on Paris and another on Le Mans and, even before he had asked himself why the scoundrel had chosen that Paris-Le Mans-Angers route, he knew the answer to the question.