“That’s something for the police to go upon,” said Mazeroux.

They were leaving the cafe when Don Luis stopped his companion.

“One moment.”

“What’s the matter?”

“We’ve been followed.”

“Followed?  What next?  And by whom, pray?”

“No one that matters.  I know who it is and I may as well settle his business and have done with it.  Wait for me.  I shall be back; and I’ll show you some fun.  You shall see one of the ‘nuts,’ I promise you.”

He returned in a minute with a tall, thin man with his face set in whiskers.  He introduced him: 

“M.  Mazeroux, a friend of mine, Senor Caceres, an attache at the Peruvian Legation.  Senor Caceres took part in the interview at the Prefect’s just now.  It was he who, on the Peruvian Minister’s instructions, collected the documents bearing upon my identity.”  And he added gayly:  “So you were looking for me, dear Senor Caceres.  Indeed, I expected, when we left the police office—­”

The Peruvian attache made a sign and pointed to Sergeant Mazeroux.  Perenna replied: 

“Oh, pray don’t mind M. Mazeroux!  You can speak before him; he is the soul of discretion.  Besides, he knows all about the business.”

The attache was silent.  Perenna made him sit down in front of him.

“Speak without beating about the bush, dear Senor Caceres.  It’s a subject that calls for plain dealing; and I don’t mind a blunt word or two.  It saves such a lot of time!  Come on.  You want money, I suppose?  Or, rather, more money.  How much?”

The Peruvian had a final hesitation, gave a glance at Don Luis’s companion, and then, suddenly making up his mind, said in a dull voice: 

“Fifty thousand francs!”

“Oh, by Jove, by Jove!” cried Don Luis.  “You’re greedy, you know!  What do you say, M. Mazeroux?  Fifty thousand francs is a lot of money.  Especially as—­Look here, my dear Caceres, let’s go over the ground again.

“Three years ago I had the honour of making your acquaintance in Algeria, when you were touring the country.  At the same time, I understood the sort of man you were; and I asked you if you could manage, in three years, with my name of Perenna, to fix me up a Spanish-Peruvian identity, furnished with unquestionable papers and respectable ancestors.  You said, ‘Yes,’ We settled the price:  twenty thousand francs.  Last week, when the Prefect of Police asked me for my papers, I came to see you and learned that you had just been instructed to make inquiries into my antecedents.

“Everything was ready, as it happened.  With the papers of a deceased Peruvian nobleman, of the name of Pereira, properly revised, you had faked me up a first-rate civic status.  We arranged what you were to say before the Prefect of Police; and I paid up the twenty thousand.  We were quits.  What more do you want?”

The Pervian attache did not betray the least embarrassment.  He put his two elbows on the table and said, very calmly: