It was indeed Joyaut, who had left Mme. Lemoine’s for the purpose of looking for a lodging for Georges where he would be less at the mercy of chance than in the fruitseller’s attic.  Leridant told him that the house of a perfumer named Caron, in the Rue Four-Saint-Germain, was the safest retreat in Paris.  For some years Caron, a militant royalist, had sheltered distressed Chouans, in the face of the police.  He had hidden Hyde de Neuville for several weeks; his house was well provided with secret places, and for extreme cases he had made a place in his sign-post overhanging the street, where a man could lie perdu at ease, while the house was being searched.  Leridant had obtained Caron’s consent, and it was agreed that Leridant should come in a cab at seven o’clock the next evening to take Georges from Sainte-Genevieve to the Rue du Four.

When he had seen the termination of the interview of which his detective’s instinct showed him the importance, Petit, who had remained at a distance, followed Joyaut, and did not lose sight of him till he arrived at the Place Maubert.  Suspecting that Georges was in the neighbourhood he posted policemen at the Place du Pantheon, and at the narrow streets leading to it; then he returned to watch Leridant, who lodged with a young man called Goujon, in the cul-de-sac of the Corderie, behind the old Jacobins Club.  The next day, March 9th, Petit learned through his spies that Goujon had hired out a cab, No. 53, for the entire day.  He hastened to the Prefecture and informed his colleague, Destavigny, who, with a party of inspectors took up his position on the Place Maubert.  If, as Petit supposed, Georges was hidden near there, if the cab was intended for him, it would be obliged to cross the place where the principal streets of the quarter converged.  The order was given to let it pass if it contained only one person, but to follow it with most extreme care.

The night had arrived, and nothing had happened to confirm the hypotheses of Petit, when, a little before seven o’clock, a cab appeared on the Place, coming from the Rue Galande.  Only one man was on it, holding the reins.  The spies in different costumes, who hung about the fountain, recognised him as Leridant.  The cab was numbered 53, and had only the lantern at the left alight.  It went slowly up the steep Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve; the police, hugging the walls, followed it far off.  Petit, the Inspector Caniolle, and the officer of the peace, Destavigny, kept nearer to it, expecting to see it stop before one of the houses in the street, when they would only have to take Georges on the threshold.  But to their great disappointment the cab turned to the right, into the narrow Rue des Amandiers, and stopped at a porte cochere near the old College des Grassins.  As the lantern shed a very brilliant light, the three detectives concealed themselves in the lanes near by.  They saw Leridant descend from the cab.  He went through a door, came out, went in again and stayed for a quarter of an hour.  Then he turned his horse round, and got up on the seat again.