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The Closing Net by Henry C. Rowland

PART ONE

CHAPTERS

Page 1
I      Tide Water Clam
II     The Tide Turns
III    Léontine Digs in the Sand
IV   A Back Eddy
V    Léontine Shows Her Teeth

Page 2
VI   "Will You Walk Into My Parlour?"
VII  American Methods
VIII Hawk And Raven
IX   The Falcon Strikes
X    Rosenthal
XI   An Heroic Lie
PART TWO
Page 3
I     Under Cover
II    The Countess Rosalie
III   The First Round
IV  Sanctuary
V   Quicksands

Page 4
VI   Temptation
VII  Back Into the World
VIII The Passing of Ivan
IX   The Net Closes
X    Into the Light


CHAPTER I
UNDER COVER

Let me tell you, my friend, that when I started out on my stalk for Chu-Chu le Tondeur, or Chu-Chu the Shearer as his name would be in English, I was about the most discouraged man in France. To have to slip back into the underworld just when I had begun to make good at earning a clean, honest living was bad enough, but what took the heart clean out of me was the knowledge that the woman who had saved me from penal servitude and started in to make a man of me should think that I had broken my word to her and gone back to the old graft.

This was what really hurt, though I must say it was this that put an edge on me, too. I don't say that I should have felt any scruples at the idea of assassinating Chu-Chu after what had happened between us, but I doubt if I should have had the same savage impatience to do for him if it hadn't been for Edith. Although I had been a thief for thirty years I had never been a danger to society except where its pocketbook was concerned. I had always worked unarmed, and had never hurt anybody—except for a few bruises, perhaps, in a scuffle to getaway. In the same way I had always managed to keep clear of trouble with people in the underworld, and even when I escaped from Cayenne I had spared a couple of devilish guards that I had every reason of killing and might just as well as not have settled. No sir; I was never a bloodthirsty man.

But Chu-Chu was. Chu-Chu was wolf or weasel, snake or tiger, according to the hunting-ground and the game he was out for. He had seldom pulled off a big job without leaving blood in his wake, and his reputation as a killer was so bad that even the swells of his own mob were afraid of him, and he usually had to work alone. In Ivan's big organisation of European thieves there were a good many hard, desperate people, yet I do not believe that there was a single one who would have dared to hold Chu-Chu up at the point of a gun in the presence of Ivan himself, as I had done, and prove him a liar to his chief, to say nothing of depriving him of gems worth a fortune. That alone was plenty to set Chu-Chu on my trail, to say nothing of my having tried to kill him in his motor on the road to Boulogne.

So here we were, each out for the other's pelt. The odds were a bit with me, I thought, and for a variety of reasons. In the first place, I was more of a cosmopolitan and less of a pronounced type, and therefore able to play easily the rôle of Frenchman, Englishman, or American. Then I had no little mannerisms, while Chu-Chu was known to his associates as "the man who smiles," and had a trick of smiling slightly to himself. His figure was average, as far as one could see through his clothes, and his physical strength was said to be phenomenal, while his face was an uncommon one for its prominent bony structures. Chu-Chu's features suggested a Spanish or possibly Basque origin, with high cheek bones, red-lipped mouth, the upper lip dropping to a point in the middle, and suggesting to me the beak of a snapping turtle, while his nose was long and acquisitive—a nose like the late King Leopold's.

Another thing in my favour was the fact that there was little danger of my being drawn into imprudence by such a hatred as Chu-Chu must have felt for me. There are certain human beings who are affected by the sight of an enemy just as you might expect a wild bull to be. It sends the blood to their heads and makes them a bit crazy, and even if they are able to control their actions their looks are apt to give them away. Chu-Chu was rather of this sort, I was inclined to think, and though he could be as acute as a fox when on the job, it wasn't unlikely that he d make some sort of a break once he thought that I was in his neighbourhood.

But what seemed to me by long odds the best card in my fist was the tip that Ivan had given me as we parted. Said Ivan: "Look out for an Oriental type of person with one nostril larger than the other. He is Chu-Chu's familiar. Some people say that he is Chu-Chu's brain."

Well, the stalk was on, and here I was out in the forest of St. Germain hidden in a clump of bay and laurel, rigging myself out like a prédicateur, or wandering preacher. I knew the part to perfection, for there had been one of these chaps doing missionary work at Cayenne, and several times I had talked with him and learned all about the fraternity. The costume, as well as the rôle, was ideal for my business. A man might wear anything under the long black soutane, and the round black hat had a wide brim that shielded the face by the least bend of the head. Another thing that helped was the fact that these preachers often wear shaded goggles, having formed the habit out in the colonies. It's a great point in favour of a man disguised to have his eyes screened. There are fine subtle lines of expression around a man's eyes that are almost impossible to control at all times.

Well, sir, I stuck a little hand-mirror in the crotch of a bush and got to work. The skin was brown enough as a consequence of the Cayenne health resort and of being so much on the road in motors. Then I ran the clippers over my head.

All rigged out, and with a tweed knickerbocker suit underneath the long black soutane, a grimy black valise in one hand and a big cotton umbrella in the other, I walked over to St. Germain and bought a third-class ticket for Paris. My plan was to get a little room up in Passy, giving it out to any neighbours who might be curious that I was studying English. Then as soon as I was settled I would get to work to locate Chu-Chu; and this might be a hard job, or, again, it might not, depending on how much he was afraid of me.

It was possible that Chu-Chu, trusting to his reputation as the most dangerous man in Europe when it came to the settling of a score, might think that I had lost my nerve and skipped the country. But, considering the fact that I had made such a good try for him on the road to Boulogne, the chances were that he would be convinced that my heart was in my work, and would get under cover himself.

It might seem on the face of it like a pretty hopeless sort of job, combing a big city for a man whom I'd only seen three times in my life, and who was pretty sure to be in some sort of disguise. But there was one thing that I thought would help me out. Chu-Chu knew that Léontine Petrovski had taken a fancy to me, and he would never believe that any such woman as Léontine would have to call twice to a man. Her looks and the wonderful alluringness of her were the talk of Paris, and when Léontine walked into a swell restaurant even the musicians got mixed in their notes. Chu-Chu would be pretty sure that I would be hanging about Léontine, and it was somewhere in her neighbourhood that he would try to pick up my trail; and it was while he was trying to nose it out that I counted on crossing his.

It was a funny situation, each of us shadowing Léontine's house, trying to get wind of the other. But the more I turned it over in my mind the more convinced I grew that the quickest way to find my man would be to keep a constant watch on the little house in Passy. There was also the chance of falling on Chu-Chu possibly going to see Léontine on professional business.

All this being so, I took a room in a little hotel just off the Rue de Passy, telling the patronne that I was perfecting my English in one of the many schools in the neighbourhood. There was a little café almost opposite Léontine's house, and I found that by sitting back in a particular corner I could look out under the low awning in front and keep a constant watch without being observed from the street. So there I went every day at noon, for it would have attracted attention if I had spent the entire day there, and after a very good little lunch I would get out a copy of Dickens and a pocket dictionary and spend the most of the afternoon reading and looking out of the window. The personnel of the establishment used to hold me up to the other clients as a very model of industry and perseverance.

Most of these other clients were cabmen, fiacre and taxi drivers. Like all of that class of French working people, they were quiet, orderly, good-natured fellows, full of good-humoured banter and amusing stories in connection with their trade. The second day that I was having déjeuner there one of the taxi drivers, who had just finished his meal, and was about to crank his motor, was hailed by Léontine's butler. I saw Léontine, more superb-looking than ever, come out, get in, and whirl away.

It occurred to me, of course, that for all I knew she might be going even then to keep a rendezvous with Chu-Chu; and it occurred to me also that if the Shearer came to Léontine's house even while I was on the look-out it might not do me a particle of good, as he would be pretty sure to come and go in a taxi, probably cleverly disguised. A good many people came to and went from Léontine's—some in handsome private limousines, others in taxi-autos, and still others in taxicabs or afoot. In the first week of my watching I recognised several members of Ivan's mob, and once Ivan himself.

But for all the folk that came and went I was convinced, at the end of two weeks watching, that Chu-Chu had not got past me. For all I knew he might be, and very likely was, watching the house from some point not far from where I was stationed. I began to be afraid that we might be alternating watches, he perhaps going on duty at night. I did a good deal of night work myself, dining at the same little restaurant and sitting behind the screen of dwarf orange-trees in tubs, usually to see Léontine and Kharkoff roll away at about half-past seven in the big six-cylinder car that I myself had sold to the Prince. They dined out and went to the play or the opera almost every night, although it was now midsummer, and most of the chic people were at the springs or beaches.

It was tiresome work watching there for a sign of Chu-Chu, but the two proverbs or maxims of which I have always most admired the truth are "It's dogged as does it," and " Everything comes to him who waits." Personally I believe that there is some sort of compelling, cohesive force given off from the person or animal that sits down and quietly waits and wishes for his prey. That force goes out in time to draw the desired object, especially when the wishing is done conscientiously and without any let-up. So I sat there and waited and watched and read "Pickwick Papers" and "Oliver Twist" and "Dombey and Son," and picked up the dictionary when I happened to think of it. Most of the cab drivers said a word to me when they came in, and I had the general reputation of being an inoffensive and deeply erudite young preacher.

Then one hot day, when the little "terrace"—as they call the strip of sidewalk enclosed by dwarf oranges—was crowded, and even the inner room was well filled, a freshly-painted, saucy little auto-taxi drew up to the curb, and down from the driver's seat stepped a very pretty, smartly-costumed chauffeuse. Just at this time the Prefecture had decided to issue permits to women, and quite a number of enterprising young persons started in to compete with the men. They have since practically disappeared, the profession not being adapted to the sex, due perhaps to the ladies insisting on the feminine prerogative of changing their minds when meeting somebody on the road.

There was nothing indecisive about this good-looking chauffeuse. The lunching drivers were watching her, and I heard a murmur run through the room: "Look, there she is—the Countess Rosalie!"

"The Countess Rosalie?" I asked of a chauffeur at a table opposite. "That is her sobriquet?"

"Not at all," he answered. "The title is her own. She met with misfortune, and preferred to support herself driving a taxi to pinning feathers on hats. Everybody knows her. Between us, she is the only woman in Paris who can really drive."

Whatever else may have been said about her, the Countess Rosalie was nice to look at. Her glossy chestnut hair was coifed as snugly as she could twist it under her little visored cap, and the trim, pretty figure, mature yet with supple, girlish lines, was displayed charmingly and modestly in the costume of light Indian khaki. The skirt was short, and showed her small, gracefully rounded ankles and dainty feet, which told of good blood somewhere, and as she came across the sidewalk she began to draw off her little kid gauntlets, smiling, red-lipped, bright hazel eyes dancing as she replied with a charming mixture of friendliness and sauciness to the good-natured greetings from the crowd at déjeuner. It may be true that some of the remarks were a bit free but not one was the least bit offensive so far as any deeper intention went. All hands "tutoyéd " her, I noticed, which was quite permissible, as here in France there is a sort of esprit de corps between members of the same craft of manual labour, who use between themselves the familiar "thee" and "thou."

Nobody scored anything on the Countess Rosalie. She gave them all as good as they sent, and was a pretty sight doing it, with her red cheeks, even white teeth, and saucy pouting lips. She was not a little woman, but her daintiness gave one that impression. I noticed, though, that when one of the older chauffeurs got up to look at the carburetter of her car, which she said was flooding all the time, she was rather the taller of the two, although he looked a fair-sized man.

The tables outside were filled, so she came inside, where the seat opposite me appealed to her as the most desirable because it was next to the window.

"Monsieur will permit me to sit here?" she asked, with a smile and about as keen a look as I ever got from any pair of eyes. It wasn't a hard look, but just to size me up and form an idea of how much of a fool or knave lived under that black soutane.

"Pray do so, madame," I answered. "It is not too hot here by the window."

She thanked me, and sat down. I picked up my book, and I could feel her bright eyes searching me as I read. French is like a mother-tongue to me, having spoken scarcely any English until my old nurse, Tante Fi-Fi, died, and I was sent to the asylum. Besides, I had done a good deal of work in France—not housebreaking, you understand, but con graft at the big resorts like Aix-les-Bains and Dinard and Trouville. For all of his acuteness at home there is no such sucker as the travelling American, especially if you strike him when he's a bit lonely and has had his leg pulled by Europeans, and thinks that the American language with an Ohio accent is a guarantee of good faith. Mind you, I'd never done any mean little tricks like nicking his leather with his letter of credit and a few hundred francs, or accepting his invitation to do Montmartre at his expense and then going through him when he was filled up with the mixture of wormwood, logwood, and carbonated white wine called champagne. But I had once sold an American millionaire an original Rembrandt, which an Italian acquaintance of mine painted during the week that I was showing my friend the Louvre and a few other places. Even the United States Customs let him pay duty on it as an original, and the picture is now the pride of his part of the State. My Venetian friend and I shared up a hundred thousand francs between us, and all hands were satisfied.

But making an American think that I was the last living descendant of the Condé family and convincing an alert Parisienne that I was an Alsatian predicateur were two very different things. So I kept on reading, while my pretty companion ordered her déjeuner and went ahead with her meal. But all the time I could feel her bright, curious eyes fixed on me, investigating every detail of my face and costume.

Presently from across the street I heard a motor slowing down, and glanced across to see a taxi pulling up in front of Léontine's house. A slender, well-dressed man, with black hair and a thin black moustache, stepped quickly out, rang the bell of the garden door, and was let in a moment later by Léontine's maître d'hôtel. But I scarcely noticed him, for something had caught my eyes and drawn them to the driver of the taxi.

This chauffeur was apparently a man past middle age, and seemed altogether of the new type that has now become so common to this class. He looked to be of medium size and weight, was costumed in the usual uniform, and wore a closely-cropped moustache of iron-grey. His face was rather high-featured, the nose aquiline, and the eyes dark and overhung by bushy, grizzled eyebrows.

There was absolutely nothing about the fellow to hold my attention, but for some reason I was unable to take my eyes off him. He reminded me of somebody quite impossible for me to place, and as I stared through the window at him I had that disagreeable sensation of being utterly baffled in memory. Almost as if he felt the force of the mental effort I was making, he shot a quick look in my direction, but the awning was low, and I was sitting back in the shadow, and all that he could see was the crowded tables on the terrace. Yet something in that sudden glance of his had set my heart to thumping in a way that was mighty disagreeable.

But it was no use. I couldn't for the life of me place him, so I picked up my book again. As I did so my eyes fell on the pretty face opposite. The Countess Rosalie's fork was poised half-way between her plate and her red lips, and the piece of melon on it was quite forgotten. Her face had a look of intense and startled curiosity. Seeing that I had noticed it, she recovered herself, popped the melon into her pink mouth, and looked down at her plate.

I leaned forward. "Madame was about to say something?" I asked suavely; for I knew that my face must have startled her, and I did not care to have it leak out that I was spying on the little house in the garden.

"Oh, no, monsieur!" she answered, slightly confused.

"We missionaries," said I, with a smile, "sometimes carry in our minds the pictures of things that one would wish to forget. Now and then some passing thought or something we may read recalls them, and at such moments the emotion awakened may reveal itself. You were startled at the expression of my face?"

She nodded. "That is true," she admitted. "When I sat down opposite you your look was that of a studious priest. Then all at once you laid down the book and looked through the window with the mouth and eyes of an apache about to strike. Oh, monsieur!"

She drew back, checking a little frightened gasp. While she was speaking I had looked through the window again, and as I did so the chauffeur in the taxi across the street leaned forward as if to examine something at his feet. In that second I recognised him for Chu-Chu le Tondeur; the contour of the bony outline of the face, the poise of the head on the body, the tightening of the sleeve over the muscular arm. There could be no doubt.

And yet it was an amazing thing, and the instant that he had recovered his upright position I could have sworn that my vision had played me a trick, due perhaps to my one constant idea. Chu-Chu's brows were thin and straight and black, his nose was long but low-bridged, his eyes were rather light in shade, his chin pointed. Also he was a more trimly-built man, less full in the paunch. I was almost baffled.

But the woman opposite was looking at me as if she wanted to get up and bolt, and that would never do. I smiled at her and wondered at the fascinated look in her eyes. But I didn't wonder long, for in my business I couldn't afford to miss a single trick. The glimpse that the Countess Rosalie had got of the criminal, the assassin, looking out of the eyes of the studious young preacher, had frightened and startled her, but it had aroused her curiosity. I saw the chance of securing a valuable pal.

"Madame," said I, with a reassuring smile, "what was it that you thought you saw in my face?"

She gave a nervous little laugh. "Something terrible," she answered, and glanced over her shoulder at the sun-flooded street. There was nothing but the gardens and shuttered houses opposite, and the grizzled taxi driver drowsing on his seat.

"You are right," I answered with another smile and a little shrug. "It was something terrible, because it was jealousy. There is nothing more terrible than jealousy, you know."

Her eyes opened very wide. "But you are a priest," she said.

"I will tell you something," I said, leaning toward her and dropping my voice. "You have surprised a secret while sitting here, and I do not want you to say to any of these others that you caught me glaring at that house in the garden across the street. But it is because of the woman who lives there that I have become a prédicateur"

The interest that every Frenchwoman always lends to a love story flamed up in her face.

"And the man for whom the taxi is waiting is your enemy?" she half-whispered.

"I wish him no ill," I answered, "but I must find out where he goes after leaving here. You have almost finished your déjeuner, have you not? May I engage your services for the afternoon?"

She hesitated for an instant, then nodded.

"You want me to follow him?"

"Yes, but without his discovering that he is being followed. That may be difficult, as it is very possible that he will be on the look-out."

"But why should he be on the look-out?" asked the Countess Rosalie. Her pretty face was flushed and eager, and as she spoke she beckoned to the garçon and settled her bill. I had already paid my own. We both looked out of the window at the taxi diagonally opposite. The top was up, as was the case with most of the others, for the sun was directly overhead and very hot. Chu-Chu had pulled a newspaper from his pocket and appeared to be reading.

"He may expect to be followed," I answered, "because the woman whom he is visiting is suspected of being a Nihilist. So far the police have never disturbed her because she is under the protection of Prince Kharkoff——"

"It is Léontine Petrovski?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yes," I answered.

"And she is the woman whom you love?"

"I love her no longer."

"But you are jealous of her. It comes to the same thing. I understand. You wish to be revenged, and so you want to find out more about this man. Isn't that true?"

"To some extent," I answered. "But I will tell you another thing. The chauffeur is a friend of the man who is in La Petrovski's house. I could learn more, perhaps, from watching him than from watching the other. If you are free——"

"Look!" she interrupted, and dropped her hand on my sleeve.

For Léontine's garden door had swung open, and out came Léontine herself, followed by the dark man whom I recognised from Ivan's description as Chu-Chu's manservant, or pal, or whatever he was. Chu-Chu, with a quick sidelong glance, got down to start his motor.

"Come, then," said the Countess Rosalie, loud enough for those about us to hear. "I will set you on your way."

"You are very kind," I answered, and followed her to the door. Under the awning I waited for an instant while she said a word of thanks to the man who had regulated her carburetter. The pause gave Chu-Chu time to turn and start down the street toward the Chaussée de la Muette.


CHAPTER II
THE COUNTESS ROSALIE

One of the coffee-drinking chauffeurs got up and cranked our motor, with some joke about a pretty woman's need of a strong arm. I stepped inside and we started, Chu-Chu being by that time near the end of the street.

My titled chauffeuse certainly knew her work. As soon as Chu-Chu was around the corner she darted ahead, lagging back when he came in sight again. As it was very hot and the hour for déjeuner, there was but little traffic, but unless they led us a chase of some length I did not think that they would suspect they were being followed. It is nothing unusual for two taxicabs to be running the same course at about the same speed; in fact, many chauffeurs drop into the habit of gauging speed by the chap ahead, as this simplifies traffic and tends to an evenly moving procession.

We spun out through the Chaussée de la Muette and into the Bois, past the Auteuil racecourse and, striking the boulevard that leads to the Boulogne gate, followed it straight out. Here Rosalie let Chu-Chu get so far ahead that I was worried.

"Don't lose him," said I through the tube; for the Countess' cab was fitted out with all the modern conveniences, even to flowers and cigar holder and a little red electric light. Chic was the word for it, inside and out.

"I want to give him time to pass the octroi," she answered, brisk as a robin redbreast.

"All right," I answered, "you know best."

But Chu-Chu, instead of going through the Boulogne gate, held on around past the Longchamps racecourse, and at such a clip that Rosalie got anxious and turned on all the power she had. As we passed the Porte de Boulogne I saw an agent raise his whistle to his lips and thought it was all up with us, but Rosalie blew him a kiss and he lowered it with a sheepish grin and a warning shake of his head. Although I did not know it at the time, Rosalie was quite a well-known figure, and had even been interviewed for several of the papers. Being in automobile circles myself, I should have known all about her, but did not, simply on account of the pressure of my own affairs.

But I was learning about her fast enough now. Under the impression that Chu-Chu was going right around Longchamps she closed in, and when he suddenly darted off to the left and pulled up at the St. Cloud gate we were only about a hundred metres behind him. It was a big surprise for Rosalie, but she wasn't feazed a particle. If she had kept on around we might have lost him, and if we had slowed down and waited for him to declare his essence it might have attracted attention, so up comes Rosaline full bore, brakes down at the gate, coming to a stop just behind Chu-Chu, and hops out to get her ticket.

As for me I had put on my tinted goggles and and whipped out a little breviary, and was reading away with my head ducked a trifle. Under the rim of the flat hat I watched Chu-Chu as he made his declaration, took his ticket, and stepped back to his car. He shot a quick glance at Rosalie, half-curious and half-amused, at which she shoved out her little chin and passed him with a pout. The octroi men tried to give her a little guff, and I was frightened for a minute as Chu-Chu was going off at a good clip; but Rosaline snatched her ticket out of the official's hand and came back laughing. She had left the motor running, of course, and the next second we were off along the bank of the Seine after Chu-Chu.

"Your Léontine is a beauty," said Rosalie through the tube. "I don't wonder you're jealous. But that chauffeur has the eyes of a wolf. He looks as if he might be Chu-Chu le Tondeur."

"What do you know about Chu-Chu le Tondeur?" I asked.

"Oh, everybody knows about him. For myself I doubt that there is such a person. Every time there is a murder and robbery people say 'Chu-Chu le Tondeur.'"

I wondered what she would think if she knew that the gentleman with the wolfish eyes was actually none other than the celebrated criminal whose performances had sent shivers down the spine of many a respectable bourgeois or lonely chatelaine in her gloomy country house hidden in the trees. It might also startle her, I thought, if she were to discover that the studious preacher in her cab was, even as Chu-Chu walked from the octroi station to his motor, wondering if it might not be possible to hit him with a shot from an automatic pistol and escape in the confusion that would follow.

For precisely this idea had gone through my head. Nowadays when one hears a sharp report the first thing that crosses the mind is the thought that it is a burst tire or a back fire from a motor. As Chu-Chu walked past the window of Rosalie's taxi I was almost on the point of shooting, then jumping out, picking him up and, while the octroi officials were tearing about and the crowd was gathering, slipping off into the bushes and shedding my round hat, goggles and soutane. Underneath I wore a tweed knickerbocker suit and russet shoes, and I had in my pocket a tweed tourist's cap to match the suit, and a Paris Baedeker. It would have taken me just about two seconds to have made the change from a wandering Alsatian French prédicateur to the most harmless of British tourists.

Then why didn't I? It is rather hard to say. I had nothing to fear from Léontine or from Chu-Chu's man. Léontine would have guessed in a flash what had happened, and probably would have helped me if the opportunity offered. Chu-Chu's pal would have been principally interested in doing his own get-away before it was discovered that Chu-Chu's face was skilfully made up. I had noticed when he passed that his nose got its aristocratic bridge from shadow-lines carefully laid on; and his eyes, really light, were made to look dark by the blackening of the lower lashes and perhaps a little atropin. His moustache was faked by the glueing in of white hairs among the black ones already there.

I think that I could have pulled the job off all right. Honestly, my chief reason for not taking the chance was the Countess Rosalie—I didn't want to mix her up in it. She had been a little trump, and the French police are always ready to grab a scapegoat. There's a bit of the Chinese theory about French criminal procedure. Somebody ought to suffer, if only to preserve the reputation of the police. Punish the guilty by preference, but punish somebody. As a matter of fact, the guilty party, or supposedly guilty party, usually gets off in the end unless he's a fairly honest sort of cove; but there's a lot of trouble about it all the same, and I didn't want to chuck it on my bright-eyed Rosalie. I was getting rather keen about Rosalie.

Anyway, Chu-Chu walked past me unhurt, and maybe he felt that there was a heap of trouble in the atmosphere, for his little smile showed the white of two fangs that might be useful to a collie, and his eyes were dancing. He may have looked at me; I don't know, because when he got close my own eyes were frozen on an Ave Maria. One spark would have blown up the magazine, and I wasn't taking any more chances than were strictly necessary. Something told me that from the moment that Chu-Chu's eyes and mine actually met any disguise under heaven would be about as effective as a tulle gown in front of an X-ray machine.

Off we went again, Chu-Chu well in the lead and a car or two between us. He was across the bridge at St. Cloud before we had reached it, but we caught a glimpse of him as he swung round the corner to start up the hill on the road to Versailles. At the first turn, which, as you remember, is mighty sudden, and with a good nine per cent. grade, we caught up to him, which we certainly should not have done if he hadn't purposely slowed. The man with Léontine was looking back, and as he sighted Rosalie he said something to Chu-Chu, who went from his first to his second speed.

It was plain enough that they were a bit suspicious, although the chances were about ten to one that any car coming out of that gate of the Bois would stick to the Versailles road. Nevertheless, at the top of the hill Chu-Chu still kept on his second speed, and Rosalie was obliged to take her choice of passing him or appearing to slow down purposely. Being a quick-witted girl she did the former, and skipped past in a sort of triumphant way, as if pleased at having overtaken him.

Apparently Chu-Chu was satisfied and came to the conclusion that there was no harm in us, for when Rosalie purposely slowed down on the incline farther along he swept past without so much as a glance.

All of this time I had been trying to study out their game, but without any success. The relations between Chu-Chu and Léontine had always been strictly professional, with Ivan as intermediary. That is to say, when Chu-Chu managed to collar stones or pearls he turned them over, or was supposed to turn them over, to Ivan, who gave them to Léontine to dispose of. Why Chu-Chu should be lugging her off into the country I couldn't imagine, unless there was some game going that had nothing to do with me.

Chu-Chu's taxi was of precisely the same make and model as Rosali's, the sort most in use in Paris. But from the way he passed us I could see that he was getting a good deal more out of his motor than we were—and this was not surprising when you come to remember that Chu-Chu was a star driver, with a beautiful sense for any sort of machinery, whereas Rosalie was more or less of a novice. Besides, her carburetter was working irregularly, and she was always too impatient about going into the speed ahead. I was afraid that as soon as we struck the fast part of the road beyond St. Cloud Chu-Chu might dig out and leave us wondering. There was also the chance of his be coming suspicious of us if at the end of several kilometres he found us still on his trail. Rosalie's taxi looked like any other taxi, but Rosalie herself did not look like any other taxi driver, and what had been at first an advantage—for Chu-Chu would never suspect me of picking out the most conspicuous driver in Paris to hound him—might easily spoil the whole business.

So I picked up the speaking tube. We were working up the last easy part of the grade.

"Madame Rosalie," I said.

"Eh, well?" she answered.

"I'm afraid he smells a rat. He is going to try to leave us once we get past the railroad crossing."

"Don't be afraid," she answered tartly. "There isn't a taxi in Paris that can make this one feel lonely. Besides, he is carrying one more person."

"But how about your carburetter?"

"Don't bother about the carburetter. It's all right."

"Thank you," said I, and hung up the tube.

Evidently the Countess Rosalie was touchy about her car. Or perhaps she felt that some slight compliment was due her, rather than impending doubts. As if she wanted to show what she could do when she really tried she brushed the arm of a bicyclist with her mudguard, then swept past a stone-cart on the wrong side of the road, and got a stream of bad talk from the carter, to say nothing of a narrow escape from knocking the head off the leader, which swung to the right from instinct at the sound of the motor.

It was a wasted effort of hers though, for Chu-Chu fooled us again. Instead of turning sharply to the left at the crossroads he held straight on, slowing a bit to let the stream of cars go past. The result was that we drew up right behind him, and he looked back and saw us. After we had followed him across the big road from Suresnes to Versailles he looked back again, then slowed down.

"Keep right on," said I sharply to Rosalie.

"I am not a fool!" she answered, and gave her speed-lever a vicious little jerk. I could feel the three pairs of eyes on us as we passed. It was a pretty serious moment, and we were in danger of spoiling everything, for we had taken a big, unnecessary détour from Paris to go to any point where that road would take us. There was only one thing to do, and I did it. Leaning out of the window, I called to Rosalie to stop. She cut off the gas and braked viciously.

"Pretend to be arguing about the route," I said quickly.

Rosalie caught my drift and began to gesticulate; I did the same. Chu-Chu was coming up slowly behind.

"Turn round and start back," said I, and jerked my head back into the cab. Rosalie stuck out a gauntleted arm, then hauled to the side of the road. Chu-Chu swept past in a cloud of dust. He turned a corner and disappeared.

"What now?" asked Rosalie, turning round.

"Wait a minute," I answered; "he suspects. We've got to change places."

I slipped off the soutane and round black hat and stepped out into the road in my knickers. Rosalie stared at me with her lips like a big red "O."

"Quick, madame," said I; "you must let me drive."

"But why?" she gasped.

"Don't ask questions; I am a chief of the secret service. Do you know who that chauffeur is? You said his name not long ago."

"Not Chu-Chu?"

"Perfectly. Jump inside and let me run the car. Don't be afraid. I shall not hurt your motor."

Rosalie obeyed without a word. I stepped up and took the wheel, and we were off.

Just as I had feared, once given a little start on a fairly good road, Chu-Chu was hard to catch. The dust hanging in the air showed that he was not far ahead, and I might have overhauled him if it hadn't been for our carburetter, which kept on flooding when I cut off the gas on curves and down grades, so that when we started to climb the mixture was too rich and we were smothered. The only way to keep any speed was to throw out the clutch and let the motor spin going down hill, and this practice is not the best in the world for the motor. Presently I heard from Rosalie on the subject.

"You'll soon heat up if you keep on doing that," said she through the tube, "Reach down and cut off the essence from the reservoir when you go down hill."

That was sound doctrine, and I acted on it, though from this point on the road mounts pretty steadily until you get to Rocquencourt. As we passed the old soldiers home I noticed that it was about five minutes to one. Rather to my surprise we found more motors on this road than before we had reached the crossroads. Three handsome cars had passed us, and presently a fourth—a big, heavy limousine—went lumbering by.

"That was Orelovna, the Russian dancer," said Rosalie's voice in the tube at my ear. "The man with her was the Grand Duke Alexander. Those people in the torpilleur that passed a moment ago were of the Comédie Française—at least I recognised Martet, and I think the man driving was Parodi."

That was all I needed to know. The whole mystery was cleared up in a flash. Just before you get to Rocquencourt, as you may remember, the road passes between two big estates surrounded by heavy walls that inclose park, chasse and farms. One of these, I remembered, had been rented by a retired millionaire banker of Frankfort, a Baron von Hertzfeld, who was a prominent figure in the theatre and café life of Paris, and who was probably giving a big déjeuner.

Léontine was no doubt on her way to this function, and very possibly Chu-Chu's associate was also an invited guest. Chu-Chu, in his character of Monsieur de Maxeville, had very likely received an invitation, as I had several times seen him with Von Hertzfeld and his little group of intimates, for outside of Ivan's mob Baron Rosenthal and I were the only ones who knew that Monsieur de Maxeville was other than a clubman of sufficient fortune, an excellent companion and a devotee of outdoor sports.

But Chu-Chu, knowing that I might even at that moment be hot on his trail, had not cared to run the risk of sticking his head above the surface. On the other hand, he must have some definite reason for wishing to be on the Hertzfeld premises during the luncheon party. Either there was some work in hand another string of pearls perhaps, for some of the women guests would be sure to be decked out in wonders—or else he might want to have a look at the house and its surroundings. He would be kept waiting until Léontine's return, and as a brave garçon of a taxi driver it is not probable that in an establishment as lavish as Hertzfeld's he would be neglected by the butler's department. Hertzfeld was a man who handed out hundred-franc notes as a tip for opening the door of his limousine.

There was no room for any doubt. Léontine was bound for Baron von Hertzfeld's, and the taxi would, of course, wait inside, so there seemed nothing for me to do but hang around outside until the party was over, which would probably be late in the afternoon. It was to be an elaborate affair, as two more big cars swept past us, also a couple of taxis.

Sure enough, when we reached the estate the big iron gates were wide open, and a footman was stationed on either side to salute the guests as they entered. I held straight on and pulled up in the shade around the first bend. Here I stopped the motor and, getting down, opened the door.

"Eh, well?" asked Rosalie a little sharply. I don't think she cared much for being a passenger in her own taxicab.

I jerked my head toward the corner of the big wall. "That's where they are," I answered, "at Baron von Hertzfeld's luncheon party."

"Oh! So that is his estate? I had heard that he lived out this way. What do you want to do now?"

"I want to keep them in view," I answered, "especially Chu-Chu. But I don't exactly see how I'm to do it. If we wait in front of the gates we shall be too conspicuous, and if we wait here we shall not be able to see them come out."

Rosalie threw me a peculiar look. She gave her pretty shoulders the slightest shrug.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"That's what I am asking myself," said she with a little smile. "To tell the truth, there are some things about this affair that strike me as funny. First you say you are jealous of la belle Léontine; then you say that the affair is all over and done with and that you are pushed along by a desire for revenge. That is easy to understand. It is not difficult to believe, also, that you have become a missionary and a prédicateur on her account. Then, while we are following her you step suddenly out of my taxi as a comme iI faut English milord, telling me that you are an officer of the secret service and that the driver of the taxi we are following is Chu-Chu le Tondeur. That is startling to hear, but possible to believe. But now what I do not understand is, if you are an officer of the secret service and the driver of that taxi is Chu-Chu, why don't you go in and arrest him? If you do not care to attempt it alone there is a station of the gendarmerie nationale not very far away."

"Madame Rosalie," I answered, "there is but one way to arrest Chu-Chu, and that way requires but one person and no assistants. Such a person as our friend Chu-Chu should be shot first and arrested afterward. But this is something that one dislikes to undertake in a crowd."

She gave me that peculiar look that had already puzzled me.

"And is it for that that you are following him?" she asked.

"I wish to take him single-handed," I answered. "Of course, if he resists——" I shrugged. "But," I added, "I want to do it as quietly as possible. It is a very bad thing for everybody when the taking of a notorious criminal is attended with a lot of noise."

"And makes it necessary to divide the credit of his capture," said Rosalie, giving me one of her intelligent looks. "You would like to arrest him without any help from outside, but are not quite sure that you could manage it. Well, then"—she turned away and began to unfasten the hood of the motor—"while you are trying to make up your mind let us see if we can't do something to correct the trouble in the carburetter."

I stepped over to lend a hand, for there was no hurry, and I liked being with Rosalie. It wasn't hard to guess at what she thought. She had me sized up as a jealous lover of Léontine's. She thought that I had been giving her a lot of guff, and was really a theatrical sort of fool who had put on a priest's hat and a soutane over my outing clothes, and had sat down in the café opposite Léontine's house to watch for whatever might happen.

But what did puzzle her, as I could see from her attitude toward me, was to determine whether I was a gentleman or merely some cheap imitation. You see, though the blood in me is about as good as you'll find, even if it never paid duty, my early education was a queer one; and though I can act the part of swell, and often have, to the point of making it mighty expensive for a critical audience, it's usually a part that I'm playing. Then my speech puzzled Rosalie, for I can talk the most affected society Parisian or the toughest La Villette argot and never change my gait. Tante Fi-Fi started me with pure French, and I'd perfected it later working society graft, and Tante Fi-Fi had been a swell in her day; the second was a sort of post-graduate course in the University of Cayenne, to which I earned a scholarship from the French Government by getting nabbed while trying to lift Kharkov's wad at Auteuil a couple of years before.

So it wasn't surprising that Rosalie had some trouble to place me, or that she began to get a little suspicious and resentful about the way I had commandeered her motor and herself. She seemed a little sulky as we leaned together over the carburetter, but it wasn't in her nature to wear a grouch for long, and when I had located the trouble in the feed-pipe and got it cleaned out and flowing properly again her smile had come back, and we seemed to be getting to be friends again.

There was no hurry about anything for the present, as Léontine would be at Hertzfeld's for the next three hours or so, and I was pretty sure that Chu-Chu would wait to take her home. Besides, a plan was buzzing round in my head, and I wanted to study it out a bit. This was a scheme for coming to grips with Chu-Chu by letting him spot me and do the stalking himself. It was a scheme that I felt pretty sure would work, and was rather like hunting a tiger by ramming round through the ungle at night, pretending to be a sheep or a kid.

But to work it right I needed Rosalie's help, and although I could not see how she would be in any danger herself, I wanted her to know and believe just what I was up against. So as soon as we had finished with the carburetter I said:

"Madame, I am afraid that you don't believe what I have told you about this affair. Some of the things I have said were true and some were not. I have now formed a plan, but before going ahead with it I wish to tell you more about the situation, and I will ask you to believe me, as I shall tell you nothing but the truth. After hearing it, if you would prefer not to be mixed up in the business you have only to say so, when I will pay you for your services up to this point, and you may return to Paris."

Rosalie gave me one of her bright, searching looks.

"Monsieur is fond of romance," said she. "Well, then, so am I. Tell me the story, if you please. Are you D'Artagnan, and is La Petrovski Milady? And if I help you what is to be my reward?"

She seated herself on the cool, shaded bank, clasped her hands in front f her knees, and looked up at me with a mocking little smile. I flung myself down beside her, for the day was hot and the grass sweet and cool.

"In the first place," said I, "let me tell you that the man who drove La Petrovski's taxi is certainly Chu-Chu le Tondeur. Of that there can be no doubt."

Rosalie raised her eyebrows. She looked incredulous yet startled.

"I cannot tell you how I happen to know him," I went on, "but I have every reason to think that Chu-Chu has sworn to take my life. It is, in fact, on that account that he is in disguise, for I will tell you another thing that many people suspect but few know for a certainty. This clever thief and murderer called Chu-Chu le Tondeur is actually a man very well known and well received in Paris society. If I were to tell you his name you would probably know at once who he is."

Rosalie's red lips parted and her breath came faster.

"Some time ago," I continued, "I discovered Chu-Chu's identity. We have also quarrelled, and there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that he has put aside all other interests to try to find and murder me. It is on this account that I shaved my head, put on goggles and a soutane, and took to watching Léontine's house from the Bon Cocher. In his life of man-about-town Chu-Chu knew that I had been attentive to La Petrovski, and has probably been hanging about there with his taxicab either in the hope of my taking him for a course or perhaps merely to locate me. You see, as soon as I learned of my danger I gave it out that I had left the country, then disguised myself and set out to watch Chu-Chu."

Rosalie's pretty face was pale with excitement, and her eyes sparkled.

"You are really serious?" she cried, pleadingly.

"I wish that I were not."

"And are you yourself of the police?"

"No; I told you that when I slipped off my preacher's rig so that you would not make any difficulty about going on. I am a private citizen and in the motor business. All that I ask is to be left in peace, but Chu-Chu will not do that, for two reasons. In the first place, he hates me for having spoiled a good job of his; in the second, he considers my assassination necessary to his own safety."

"But if this is so, and you can identify him as Chu-Chu le Tondeur, why do you not go to the police and have him taken?"

"Because," I answered slowly, "Chu-Chu is the leading light of a very powerful criminal organisation. To denounce Chu-Chu would be to involve others, and in that case I probably should not live long enough to drink a petit verre. But Chu-Chu himself is not in very good favour with the gang, and nobody would hold it against me if I were to settle my affair with him quietly."

"You wish——?" gasped Rosalie.

"I wish to protect myself."

She glanced at my face, then drew back a little, pale and her breath coming quickly. But the fascinated look I had observed in the café was there again.

"What do you want to do?" she asked almost in a whisper; and her hazel eyes never left my face. "And what do you want me to do?" She moistened her lips with her tongue.

"My plan is this: In about an hour, or, say, an hour and a half, I want you to drive me, dressed as I am now, into the Hertzfeld place. I will tell the maître d'hôtel that I am a journalist, a correspondent of some English paper, and ask to be favoured with a list of the guests, the menu, and, if possible, a few words with the Baron. This ought not to be difficult, as he is nouveau riche and his title a recently purchased one, and he likes notoriety. While in there I will contrive to let Chu-Chu get a glimpse of me. He will recognise me at once, but I shall pretend not to have seen him. Chu-Chu will think that I have come in the hope of a word with Leontine, whose house I might be afraid to visit. Then, unless I am very much mistaken, when we leave Chu-Chu will follow us."

"To learn where you live?"

"Yes, and possibly even to make an attack on the road. That is what we must avoid."

"Mon Dieu! But how?"

"We must not let him catch us until we reach the forest of Marly. It begins less than a kilometre from here. We shall have a sufficient start to keep ahead for that distance. Once in the wood I shall jump out and walk into the trees. If Chu-Chu follows me we will settle our difficulties then and there."

Poor Rosalie looked scared to death. I waited for a minute, expecting to hear her say that she wanted nothing to do with the whole business. Instead of that, after a minute of reflection:

"Do you think that he will believe that I know?" she asked.

"If I thought that for a single second," said I, quickly, "I should walk into that place and shoot him off the seat of his taxi before I would permit you to have any hand in it. No; Chu-Chu will believe that I chose you either by chance or because I should naturally expect him to think that the last person I would choose should be the most easily traced taxi in Paris. He would never for a second dream that I had taken you into my confidence. Besides, he would never believe that if you knew what was going on you would dare tackle it."

She dropped her hands at her sides, straightened out her pretty limbs, and took a deep breath. I looked at her admiringly, for it was plain that she was frightened and was making a plucky fight to get the upper hand of her scare. Lithe as a cat, she twisted over presently on one hip, dropped her chin on her knuckles, her elbow on the sward, and began to pluck at the grass. Neither of us said anything. Her long reflection made me begin to believe that she was wondering, perhaps, what there was going to be in it for her in mixing up with such an ugly business. That idea was in my own mind, and I had decided to offer her a thousand francs for the afternoon's work and four thousand more to be paid later if the business turned out all right for me. I really did not see how Rosalie ran any risk, especially as I should be taking good care not to let Chu-Chu haul up very close to us. And, any way, she was free to turn the proposition down if she chose.

Rosalie rolled back, put a stem of grass between her lips, and turned to me with the colour in her cheeks again. I expected to hear her ask: "What do I get?" or words to that effect. Instead she asked:

"You are well armed?"

I grinned, and nodded. A few minutes before she had been advising me rather sarcastically to get a troop or two of the gendarmerie nationale to help me out; now she was worrying about my armament.

"Don't you bother about me," I answered. "Think about yourself a little. After all, you aren't in the motor business for your health."

We were speaking in French, of course. I had no earthly reason for suspecting Rosalie of knowing any other language, as, for all her title, she had nothing of the grande dame about her, and might have been a farmer's daughter or run a decent little restaurant, so far as distinction went. But when I said, "You're not in the motor business for your health," I translated the American slang literally. Now, as a matter of fact, most slang translates literally from one language to another, and it has often surprised me when I've been in the States to hear some local mug that had never got farther from his alley than the first full gutter, spouting what was considered the very latest hot talk, and what I've recognised straight off as good old moth-eaten, fly-bitten Montmartre or La Villette. If some person with a lot of time on his hands wanted to take the trouble he could dig up an old English or old German or old French gag for the bulk of American slang. I can only think of a few this minute. For instance, "to have a good front," avoir du front; "chippy," chiple; the word French crooks have for prison, couloir—corridor and, in American, "the cooler"; or to get right down to recent American slang, not over five years old, "gink." The apache French for that, and old as the hills, too, is ging, and comes from the word ginguet, which means a soft, easy mark. So, mind you, what I said to Rosalie about not running a taxi for her health might have been said in French slang in exactly the same way. Maybe my way of putting it was the American one, for she stared at me for a second, then answered in perfectly good American: "Not on your life!"

I felt like a fool. Some years before I'd worked Kansas City until I thought that the ground needed to lie fallow for a while, and I was on to the accent. I'd been a "distinguished foreign guest," and the leading citizens trimmed me at poker while I was making myself popular and finding out where they kept it. When I was all fed up with the place I worked a couple of banks, then ran over to Monte to give it away to the Prince of Monaco, for you mustn't forget that the greatest rest for the grafter is to become a happy, idle sucker for a while. That is the reason why so many American millionaires go to Europe for their vacations.

So when Rosalie came back at me with that "Not on your life!" and no mistake about the "your-r-r-r," I was about as startled as if Chu-Chu had stuck his head over the wall behind us—which belonged, I believe, to Prince Marat. No French woman could have got that accent, any more than an American woman could ever hope to pronounce the simple French word for "king."

Rosalie threw back her head and laughed. She was mighty inviting to look at when she laughed, and I got an impression of soft throat, moist red mouth, and her tantalising eyes looking down half-closed over her cheeks. I must have looked like a fool, because she laughed harder than ever; in fact, she laughed too hard for just ordinary amusement.

Suddenly she straightened up and wiped her eyes. She had laughed so hard that she had slipped down the bank, and her short skirt was drawn up over her knees, and this and the dimpled face made her look like a little girl hot and flushed after some frolic.

"Well," said I, as she straightened her skirt and pushed back her hair, "that's one on me all right. I've taken the elementary courses in human nature and knocked around the world a bit, but I'll be hanged if I could ever have spotted you for an American!"

"Wichita," said she.

"The rest wasn't hard to guess," I answered; "but how did you manage to spot me for an American?"

"I had my doubts from the first," she answered. "Your telling me that you were Alsatian put me off; then I thought you were English. I knew you weren't French French."

"What gave you the clue finally?" I asked.

"Your business methods."

"My what?"

Your scheme for drawing Chu-Chu off into the forest of Marly and having it out with your guns—or knives, or whatever comes handy. That doesn't match up with the local colour. What's your State? Arizona?"

"I've been there," I answered; "but never mind about me. I wish you'd tell me how it happens that a Wichita girl should be driving a Paris taxicab and speaking French like a Parisienne de Paris. Then you are titled, too."

Rosalie gave a little mock sigh. "Such is fame," says she. "Now, if you ever read the Matin and the Kansas City Star you'd know all about me. Not that there's such an awful lot to know. My father was Mr. Michael O'Rourke, and he emigrated from Ireland to Chicago, where he started in business driving a cab. You see, it's a sort of inherited gift. Pretty soon he owned most of the cabs, and then he owned a street-car line and a good bit of the city, and a lot of the people in it. But he stayed Mike O'Rourke, and when he married my mother there was an awful row from all the old snobs. Mother was proud, and asked odds of nobody, but a few years later they went to Wichita, where I was born. Mother never forgave the people who turned her down for marrying beneath her, so as soon as I was old enough she sent me to a French convent, saying that she wasn't going to have me grow up a snob. The last year that I was in the convent mother and father were both killed in a railway collision"—Rosalie blinked a few times—"and I went home and found myself a mighty lonesome heiress. Then my mother's sister came over for the winter and brought me with her, and while we were away her husband took such good care of my estate that in a few months there was nothing left of it but enough to give me a fairly decent dot. To compensate for what her husband had done my aunt made what she considered a very good match for me with the Comte de Brignolles. Of course, being convent-bred, it never occurred to me to object, so we were married, and started off on our honeymoon, and—and"—Rosalie's face got crimson—"and five minutes after we had left my aunt's I found that I loathed him, so I stopped the motor and got out and jumped into a taxi, and went straight to where the Mother Superior lived; for the convent had been closed by this beautiful Government, and the nuns driven away. I stopped with Sœur Anne Marie, and my aunt was furious, and wouldn't see me, and the Comte got a separation and my dot. A year ago he died, and his lawyers kindly gave me back what he hadn't gambled away—about fifteen thousand francs. It wasn't enough to go on long, and about that time the Prefecture decided to issue permits for women taxi drivers, so I bought my little car and, went to work. You see, I'd learned to drive after leaving the convent, and I liked it, and I must say I haven't done so badly." She looked at me and smiled.

"You're a wonder," said I. "Now let me tell you something. I'm going to square up with you for our promenade, and then I want you to get into that little taxi of yours and spin back to Sœur Anne Marie as fast as God will let you. You still live with her, I hope?"

Rosalie shoved out her little chin. "That is none of your affair," says she.

"I beg your pardon," I answered. "I said it out of pure friendly interest. You see, a girl in your position is like a pheasant in the hunting season, and I'd like to feel that you had a high fence that you could fly over and be unmolested if you had need."

Her face softened. "Well, then," says she, "I don't mind telling you that I have taken a little apartment for Sœur Anne Marie and myself, and I go straight there as soon as ever my work is over. I'm my own mistress and can do as I please, but sometimes it's hard to finish up and go home. You can wait for an hour or so on a stand, then get a little twenty-sou fare and start home, and the chances are that if you're very tired and your lamps need filling, and you're not quite sure about one of your envelopes, and the bougie is full of burned oil, and a little grease has got into the clutch and is making it slip, and Sœur Anne Marie is waiting for you to come in and make the omelette, that is just the time that you'll be hailed by three or four American college boys who want to run out to Versailles or Fontainebleau for dinner. And you can't refuse."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because, for one thing, I can't afford to. Besides, they make me homesick. I always have a fight to keep them from digging into their jeans and giving me all the money they've got. Of course, I never let them guess that I'm American, too. Only last week a youngster sat beside me coming in from Chantilly. He offered me a hundred francs for a good-night kiss. I told him that he could have the kiss for nothing if he'd promise to go straight home and go to bed. What do you think he did?"

"I don't like to say," I answered; and maybe my voice was a bit nasty, for somehow or other I wasn't very keen at the thought of this nice little girl being mauled and jollied by a batch of cub collegians.

Rosalie pushed out her lips and chin. "You needn't be afraid," she said. "He thanked me very nicely, and when we got to the Champs Elysées he said: 'I'll claim my forfeit now. Stop at the Carlton.' I was awfully upset, because, you see, he'd called my bluff, and I didn't like to cheapen myself before the concierges and chauffeurs. But I had to make good, so I turned in under the marquise to let him out. Instead of trying to kiss me he got down, walked round to my side—and kissed my hand, or my glove. Then he went in and went to bed."

"And the next day?" I asked.

Rosalie's colour was like a big crimson dahlia.

"He had less sense when he was sober than when he was drunk," she answered, and laughed; "but he's safely on the way to his fiancée in Newport now, so it's all right. He'll always think of the little French chauffeuse who gave him such good advice, and asked no more than what was indicated on the clock, as those boys called it."

Rosalie stopped talking and looked thoughtful. I was a bit thoughtful myself.

"Well," said I, "suppose you look at the clock and tell me what time it is in louis. It's time that you were getting back to Sœur Anne Marie—and that I was getting on the job."

Rosalie looked at me with her queer little smile.

"You engaged me for the afternoon," said she. "I'm no quitter, as they say in Wichita."

"That's plain enough," I answered, "but I am. How much do I owe you?"

"A little straight talk," she answered.

"You're right there," I answered, "and you shall have it." Perhaps it was the strain of the last week or two, or perhaps it was the knowledge that things were coming to a focus. Maybe Rosalie had something to do with it. Anyway, said I:

"What if I were to tell you that you were talking to a crook?"

Rosalie gave me a steady look.

"I wouldn't believe you," she answered. "But if you were to tell me that I was talking to a man that was settling off old scores"—she smiled—"I think I'm on," says she, "and I stand pat."


CHAPTER III
THE FIRST ROUND

There was no use in trying to send Rosalie back to Paris. She wouldn't go. The girl was no fool; and, totting up what she'd seen and what I'd told her, and making a good fore-and-aft guess at the rest, she came pretty near piping down the situation.

"As I dope it out," says she, sitting there on the edge of the bank with her round knees cuddled under her clasped hands, "there's a feud between you and this Chu-Chu person—and it's coming to a head. Now let me tell you something; there's been only one time in my life when I've started something that I couldn't finish, and that was my marriage to De Brignolles. I don't know whether you're what they call a 'grafter' over there at home, or whether you're a sort of Arsene Lupin or Sherlock Holmes, or what you are. At first I thought you were a jealous lover; then I thought you were a secret service man; then I thought you were a liar." Rosalie looked at me sort of doubtfully.

"What do you think I am now? I asked.

She smiled a little and shook her head.

"I don't know," she answered, "and I don't care very much; but you're an American, and you're up against something that is very difficult, and I'm not going to scud off and save myself."

Let me tell you, my friend, I wanted to reach over and gather the girl in and kiss her. She was a little brick. Here she was, a girl who had spent two-thirds of her life in France and had her ups and downs in both countries, yet had never been smirched you had only to look at her to see that and had kept ideals.

"Look here, Rosalie," said I, "you're the best little girl in all the world, and I feel that I'm going to be a better man for having known that there really are some like you. I've only been up against one in my life, and she thinks I'm all wrong—and I don't blame her. Now it ain't included in my route-card to bring trouble to the only two really unselfish women that I ever met; so you and I are due to part immediatement. You said a minute or two ago, 'That's all you get for being famous'; so there's no kick coming if you don't recognise me when I tell you one or two of my old business names. Until a month or so ago, when I went on the level for my own good reasons, I was about as slick a thief as ever tried to collect what he thought the world owed him. The police in New York and Chicago, and London and Frankfort—and even 'way off there in St. Louis, where they love a thief until he's pinched almost as much as they do here in Paris—would feel real broken up if they knew I'd chucked graft. Maybe you never heard of Frank Clamart, alias the 'Tide-water Clam,' alias 'The Swell,' alias 'Sir Frankie,' and a few others?"

Rosalie looked embarrassed.

"No," says she. "I never had a chance to see the papers in the convent." She looked at me and laughed outright. "That squares us, doesn't it? So it was an old score, just as I thought."

"No," I answered, "it's not an old score. It's a brand-new one. It all happened after I'd chucked graft and passed my word to—to——"

"Léontine?"

"Faugh!" said I.

"I beg your pardon," says Rosalie, and the smile had clean gone out of her face.

"Look here, little girl," said I, quick as a flash; "don't think for a second that I'm pretending to be in love again. I'm not. The woman I passed my word to is the wife of my half-brother, and she's not like the rest of us down here."

"Hush!" says Rosalie. "You needn't shout. I understand. Sœur Anne Marie is that kind. Just knowing them makes the rest of us who have naughty thoughts and too many feelings and a certain amount of honesty feel that, after all, it's worth while to kick along. Don't you think so?"

"Yes," I answered. "You're on, my dear. And now, after what I have told you, I fancy you won't mind climbing up on that seat and twisting your little waggon back to Paris. If you start right now you'll just about get to the Champs Elysées in time to take some of the boys to a different bar. Will a hundred francs cover our account?"

I spoke roughly on purpose, because I wanted her to flare up and clear. Here was a nice little woman, and an American at that, who had had troubles enough of her own; so I spoke to her as if what I said could have only one possible answer.

Instead of acting up as I had counted, however, she gave me a quiet little smile and answered:

"Do I strike you as the sort to file away and leave a fellow American in a bad corner? Not much! You've engaged me for the whole afternoon, and it's not yet two o clock. What you are after, as I dope it out, is to draw the fire of this Chu-Chu person. You want to make sure that he means business, and you think that, if he does, the sooner you liquidate the better. Well, the forest of Marly is just the place for two people with your trouble. And"—she glanced at me and a sort of warmth came into her eyes—"I'm not worrying myself to death over the result. You look as if you could manage to take care of yourself."

I shook my head.

"It won't do, Rosalie," I answered. "If Chu-Chu should happen to know that you were an American he would suspect you of working with me or trying to help. He's as revengeful as a Pathan, and there's no telling what he might do to you afterward. Besides, he's seen you once to-day, and if he were to catch sight of you again he might get suspicious. I'll manage some other way. I've got a little scheme. It may not work, but there's no great harm in trying it. If you're interested to know how it pans out drop into the Bon Cocher at about noon to-morrow."

She saw that I meant it, so she gave in; and I thanked her and squared up. Rosalie would let me pay her only the regular amount and the regular tip for an out-of-town course. Then we shook hands and she stepped up to her seat when I cranked the motor; and she moved slowly off in the direction of Paris. I had made a bundle of my prédicateur costume and carried it under my arm.

So back down the road I went and in through the big gates, which had been left open—though, the guests having all arrived, the footmen had gone up to the house. The place was a very handsome one, with a big park and straight alleys cut through the trees, with grottoes and fountains and statues—all very stately and well kept. Beyond the house one caught a glimpse of a jardin d'agrément, with a bank of crimson dahlias all in bloom and a sort of temple d'amour at the far end.

As I drew near the house I discovered that the stables were off to the left, and some distance in the rear, the waiting motors, both private cars and taxis, being parked out on the shady terrace. Some of the servants had brought out a couple of tables, and the chauffeurs were partaking of the refreshment offered. There was a good deal of tobacco smoke and the distant murmur of talk and laughter, but the house itself was silent, as if deserted; and this was explained by a file of waiters going in a double stream, like ants, down one of the paths which led off into the park. Apparently the déjeuner was being served al fresco some distance from the house. I stopped to listen, and heard the faint ripple of women's voices, then a silvery laugh.

Not a soul was in sight about the front of the chateau. Such servants as were not occupied in helping to serve were hobnobbing with the chauffeurs or on duty in the kitchen. Even the dogs were assisting at the banquet, for I could hear intermittent yappings, and once a sharp ki-yi!

At the foot of the big stone steps I paused and looked about for somebody to hail, wishing that I had rung at the gate; but I had never counted on finding the place deserted, and had thought that once inside the better my chance of success would be.

For this was my plan—and you can see, my friend, that if the first was a sporting proposition, this second, which I had fallen back on rather than have Rosalie mixed up in the business, was almost dangerous. I meant to go to the maître d'hôtel and explain to him that I was a reporter, and ask for the names of Monsieur le Baron's guests. A five-franc piece would get me all the information I might seem to need. I would then explain that I had come from Paris in a taxicab, which had broken down on the road within about a kilometre; that I had walked the remainder of the distance. And I would ask him if he thought that one of the waiting taxis might not set me over to Versailles, which was only about three kilometres away. The maître d'hôtel, I fancied, would tell me that I might go and ask them, and this I would do, feeling sure that Chu-Chu would immediately recognise me and volunteer, trusting to his disguise. Once in the cab and on the way, he would probably pick out the first unpeopled part of the road to turn sharply on his seat and shoot into me. And my particular business was to beat him to it.

It was a nice little plan, and there seemed no particular reason why it shouldn't work. Chu-Chu would think I had come out in the hope of getting a word with Léontine, and no doubt find nothing to suspect in the story of my motor having broken down.

So I stood at the bottom of the steps, looking round for a servant; and, seeing no one but the distant waiters carrying dishes, I was about to try the side entrance when my ear was caught by a low sound which had for me a peculiar significance. Nobody but an ex-cracksman would have given it a second's thought. On a lovely summer day, with birdsongs all about, the distant sounds of careless revelry, bursts of laughter, and the occasional squeal of a maid coming from the direction of the stables, and the big, sunny, wide-open country house, its front shaded and silent, but the rear teeming with activity—let me tell you, it seemed the very last place in the world for such a sound as fetched me up all standing!

It was no more than the gentlest purr; and if I had not been standing directly before the open door, so that it came to me amplified through the vaulted corridor within, I never could have heard it. As it was, I recognised it instantly, and knew exactly what was going on.

I took a quick look round. There was nobody in sight for the instant, and I slipped like a cat up the steps and through the front door. There I stopped again to listen. It was cool and silent inside—so still that I could hear the ticking of a clock on the floor above. The noise which had attracted me came also from the floor above; and as I listened it ceased for an instant, then changed in character, becoming more metallic and even more difficult to hear.

There was no need for me to listen, however. Chu-Chu was at work up there. I wondered that he went to the trouble of blow-lamp and drill when in his wonderfully sensitive hands the lock of a country-house safe would have been a mere child's puzzle, to be solved in a couple of minutes at most. I decided that the safe must be a very ancient one, with a heavy, rusty old lock—the meanest sort, by the way, for the cracksman.

It made it all plain enough. Chu-Chu had run out to look the house over with an idea to a future job, but, finding the conditions so favourable, was acting on the bird-in-the-hand principle. Chu-Chu was an avaricious man, and loved his profession, and he couldn't resist the opportunity. I doubted he'd find much in the safe; and no doubt he felt the same way, but thought he might as well gather in what there was. And, mind you, it was only about three weeks earlier that he had stolen the Allerton-Stair jewels on the Calais-Dover boat. Chu-Chu was certainly a greedy hog!

I laid my bundle on a big Renaissance chest in the hall and crossed, as silent as a weasel, to the stairs. I was wearing felt-soled shoes these days, and they made no more noise on the marble than the pads of a wolf. Chu-Chu's merry little mill was turning again as I stole up the stairs, and it stopped just as I reached the first landing.

It was better to stalk him while he worked, so I waited; and as I did so there came a squeal and a giggle from somewhere in the rear of the house and the sound of a ringing slap. Next, a throaty-voiced but panting "Voyons!—ma belle!"—half-reproachful, half-indignant. Another squeal, another slap, followed by the rustle of muslin skirts in swift flight. This time the "Tiens, p'tite!" had a fierce sort of ring to it, and there was the clatter of pursuit. Out of the pantry they burst, through the salon and sallé-a-manger, where something got overturned and came down with a crash. A lap or two round the table, then out into the ante-chamber, and for a second I thought they were coming up the stairs; but no, she dodged him at the foot of the stairs, and I caught a glimpse of them—and a mighty pretty, healthy specimen of an eighteen-year-old poulette she was, and he a trim young chauffeur in maroon livery and gaiters. He chased her into the conservatory, and there I think he caught her, for there was the sound of a scuffle, a stifled squeal or two, and a couple of flower-pots coming down. Then silence, and I reached for my knife.

For it was knifework—this job ahead. No Fourteenth of July, Fall-of-the-Bastile celebration for Chu-Chu and myself. Our work had to be quick and silent; and I wondered what old Hertzfeld would think when he saw a respectable-looking, middle-aged chauffeur lying in a pool of blood in front of his safe—nothing touched—and learned later that the man was none other than the celebrated Chu-Chu, who was commonly thought to be part myth, I think. Chu-Chu had earned the name in his youth, and was trying hard to live it down by sincere and steady work of an unspectacular sort. When he felt the need of murdering somebody he did it quietly and without any limelight, and for some definite purpose—usually a money one. I remember that the night of Léontine's party Chu-Chu spoke pretty bitterly about a play that had appeared at the Grand Guignol under his name.

This sort of obituary notice of Chu-Chu was going through my head while I waited for the scufflers in the conservatory to come to terms and Chu-Chu to start to work again; and pretty soon the house got quiet, and I heard the little purr of the blow-lamp.

Up I went, knife in fist, impatient to be done with the business and out into the bright sunlight, with the perfume of the oleanders and the bird-songs. That was what I wanted—to be out in the bright upperworld again, a free man, with no vampire from the underworld dogging me in and out. Compunction? I had no more of it than the man who blows the head off a crocodile or sneaks out and poisons a wolf. That sort of sentimentality was never my trouble; and, between you and me, there's a lot of nonsense about the sacredness of human life, any way. Send 'em back where they came from, and let 'em start fresh! Next time, maybe, they'll get started on the right thread. As for the fairness or lack of it in stabbing to death an unsuspecting man—well, this wasn't exactly a sporting event, like a prize-fight or a duel. It was just a plain feud.

At the top of the stairs I paused to listen. The blow-lamp had stopped and the drill was at work again, but I didn't hear it, as one of the chauffeurs had started his motor for some reason, and the hum of it filled the place. A couple of seconds later I slipped down the hall and was looking through a crack between the portières and the door—and there was Chu-Chu, squatting on his knees and just in the act of drawing out the drill.

The little room where he was at work was a sort of boudoir, just off the Baron's bedroom probably, and finished in English style—Jacobean, with desk and safe and writing table, and the walls hung with English hunting prints. There was a big armoire, one door half-open, and a goat coat hanging inside, and a couple of golf sticks were lying on a Breton chest. The place seemed a sort of little den—part writing-room, part cosey corner—the sort of place that the man who lives there usually takes more comfort in than all the rest of the big house put together.

Chu-Chu was squatting in front of the safe, which, just as I had thought, was an old-fashioned affair, clumsy and rusty, and, as a matter of fact, a hanged-sight more burglar-proof than lots of your modern contraptions. I once knew of an expert cracksman losing his temper and making such a row getting into an old-fashioned buffet after a drink that it got him pinched. The first glimpse I got of Chu-Chu showed him hot and angry as he pocketed his drill and half turned to listen before going on with the job.

My friend, I don't care what they say, there's certainly such a thing as pure animal instinct that can be developed in a man just as in a dog or wolf, to warn him and put him on his guard when his human senses tell him nothing. Chu-Chu could not possibly have heard me. In the first place, the motor in the rear of the house was buzzing away; and, in the second, I had not made so much noise as a spider walking across his web. He could not see me, as the hall was darkened, and the slit between the portières no wider than the cover of a book. But, all the same, he felt danger and was on his feet like a flash, his legs braced, his head dropped between his shoulders, and a long blade flashed from somewhere and lay in his hand as a man holds a foil.

I waited for a second, feeling that the alarm might pass. Chu-Chu's eyes were on the portières. His hand went out to the oak chest and picked up some thing lying there. I caught the glint of it and whipped out my pistol, and even as I did so Chu-Chu fired point blank straight into the portières.
There was a sharp pain in my shoulder, and the pistol flew out of my hand. I tore aside the portières and leaped into the room. Chu-Chu fired again, but I ducked under his arm, grabbed his wrist and sent the knife home just under it. He squalled like a cat, and struck at me with his knife, putting the blade through my right forearm. Mad with pain, I loosened my hold of the hilt and struck him under the chin with my left fist. It was a solid, short-arm blow, and keeled him over. At the same instant somebody grabbed me from behind. I flung back my head and writhed round like a cat. A footman had me by the shoulders, but I got an arm free and landed him one between the eyes that sent him floundering across a chair. Then I turned and darted out of the door, down the stairs, grabbed up my bundle and dashed into the nearest thicket, a mass of shrubs and flowers, and out into the more open park behind. Back of the house there was a yelping like kennels at feeding-time, and two or three of the waiters who were carrying dishes down the path with the grass carpet caught sight of me as I sped under the trees and raised a squall. Chu-Chu had drilled me through the shoulder and sliced me through the arm, and before I'd gone fifty metres my head began to swim. The shoulder didn't bother me a bit, but the blood was welling out of my arm rich and red, and I knew he'd got an artery. So I pulled up for a minute and tugged off my tie and twisted it round a couple of times, tying it with hand and teeth; and hardly had I got it fast when things began to get black and I had to stretch out on the ground, knowing that unless I did I was pretty sure to flop.

The faintness passed in a few moments, and I shoved up my head to look and listen. I was lying in a heavy clump of ivy that covered not only the ground, but the trees and shrubs thereabout, and made a splendid cover. Voices were shouting from here and there, and the hum from the house was like a beehive kicked over. Somebody was crashing round in the underbrush not far away, but out of sight from where I lay. You know how jungly and overgrown these French places get, so different from the spick-and-span English ones.

It was a bad look-out for me, as I knew that some of the people would have run out into the road; but all hands would be looking for a man in a tweed knickerbocker suit, according to the descriptions of the footman and the waiter who had sighted me as I burst from the house. So as quickly as I could I climbed into my long black soutane, round hat and goggles. Then, walking carefully and making as little noise as possible, I stole through the underbrush toward the wall, where I fell on a path.

Nobody was in sight for the moment, but there were shouts and cries coming from all over the place. Then down the path in my direction came running a couple of chauffeurs, both of them with very flushed faces. At sight of me they paused for a second.

"Have you seen anybody?" asked one of them.

"Have I seen anybody?" I repeated. "I do not understand. What has happened?"

"There has been a thief in the house! Where do you come from, anyhow?"

"I am afraid you have had too much to drink," I answered. "Too much wine is a bad thing during this hot weather."

"Come on!" said the other impatiently. "Don't stop to argue!" And the two of them started to run down the path.

The whole park was swarming, and from all sides came the sound of crashing foliage and shouted questions and answers. The déjeuner had been abandoned, of course, and guests, waiters, cooks, chauffeurs, stablemen and field-workers were scouring the place—some beating out the bushes, others patrolling the road outside on the look-out for the criminal should he break for the wall. I came suddenly upon an exquisitely-dressed gentleman and lady adventuring through the woods hand in hand. He was pushing slightly in advance, armed with an enormous carving knife, and glaring ferociously into the shaded coverts. I recognised him at a glance as Martet, the actor; and the woman I had seen in the restaurants with her husband, a prominent playwright. She was very pretty, and appeared frightened; and as I drew near the actor turned and gave her an embrace that ought to have reassured her, so far as the desperado was concerned. Then, as he loosed her, she caught sight of me and let out a little scream, at which Martet gave a jump that might have taken him to the top of the wall if it had been in the right direction. Seeing what I was, he scowled ferociously, and picked up the carving knife which he had dropped.

"Have you seen anything suspicious?" he demanded in his sonorous stage voice.

I smiled, and made a little gesture with my hand.

"A slight indiscretion, monsieur," I answered. "I have already forgotten it."

The lady giggled. The actor frowned, then burst into a laugh.

"Touché mon ami!" he said. "I was, of course, referring to this scoundrel of a burglar, not to a slight touch of midsummer madness."

"Indeed," says my lady, raising her eyebrows. "So it was that—and the champagne perhaps."

I smiled, touched my hat and passed on, leaving them to squabble and make it up. A little farther on I saw a tall white figure moving toward me at right angles. It disappeared behind some evergreens; then out into the path in front of me stepped Léontine.

I moved aside to let her pass, raising my hand to the brim of my hat. She shot me a quick glance, and seemed about to look away; then stared, and her amber-coloured eyes darkened. Then she raised her hand warningly, seemed to listen for an instant, and peered in a stealthy way under the low-hung branches.

"You're a wolf, Frank," she whispered. "How did you manage it? Getting honest has turned you preacher in not much but costume—has it, my friend? And"—she turned her head aslant and surveyed me with a critical smile—"I must say you look rather nice without your moustache."

"Is he dead?" I asked, and leaned against the wall, for the tourniquet on my arm was hurting me horribly.

"No; you've missed again, my little boy. The surgeon, Doctor Lemaitre—who was lunching with us, you know—says the knife passed between the ribs and the heavy muscles of the chest. He is painfully but not dangerously hurt."

"Do they guess who it is?"

"On the contrary, he is the hero of the moment. He is the brave chauffeur who, while walking under the trees, saw a man scale the wall, and followed him to the house, where he surprised him at his work and tried to take him single-handed. Hertzfeld is going to give him a handsome present for having prevented the robbery. There was in the safe a diamond tiara for which our friend the Baron paid two hundred thousand francs, and which he had intended to present to a certain young actress of his acquaintance on her jour de fête, as a slight token of his appreciation of her talent."

I whistled.

"Chu-Chu's chest is not the sorest part of him!" I observed.

"He is very vexed," said Léontine. "As he was my taxi-driver, I have volunteered to look after him, and shall take him to a maison de santé that I know of. Don't try to kill him while he's laid up, Frank. That would not be nice."

"All right," I answered. "By-the-way, Léontine, where are your sympathies? Am I to count on your help or not?"

"Neither, mon ami. My position is precisely that of Ivan. Personally I sympathise with you, as there is a great deal about Chu-Chu that I have never liked; but he is one of us, and you are a renegade. So, as the case stands, I am strictly neutral. Fight it out, my little dogs, and may the best pup win! What you did on the road to Calais set my blood on fire. I would have given my jewels to have been in the car with you. And what you have done to-day was daring, too; and I like daring things. No; you've missed again—but perhaps you may catch it on the third coup. I won't help you, Frank; but I'll tell you what I will do—I'll walk to the gate with you and see you into the road, and if necessary say that I know you. They might wonder what you were doing in the park."

"I'll say that I was passing, and came in when I heard the row."

"I don't think that it will be necessary to say anything. The gendarmerie has not yet arrived, and everybody is off his head. It was so funny, Frank, to see the way the party broke up. Some of the men got pale and some got red, and two or three began to arm themselves with empty bottles and some with full ones; and some ran to the house——"

"And some are spooning in the park," I interrupted.

"I don't doubt it—— What's the matter, Frank? You are getting ghastly!"

"Chu-Chu pricked me in the arm."

"Here—rest a minute! Sh-h-h!—somebody's coming. Brace up, my dear!"

I managed to brace up after a moment or two, and we started to walk to the gate. Fortunately it wasn't far, and—would you believe it?—the first person I saw was Rosalie, her taxi pulled up to the curb, and she talking, with a very white face, to a mottled-looking footman, armed with a billiard cue.


CHAPTER IV
SANCTUARY

When Rosalie caught sight of me I thought she was going to keel over, but she pulled herself together, and her eyes fastened on Léontine in a hard little stare.

There was quite a group round the gate. Everybody looked at us as we came out, and somebody asked:

"The poor fellow is dead—or dying?"

"No," answered Léontine. "He is in no danger. Fortunately a priest was not needed after all." She glanced about, and her eyes fell on Rosalie's taxi and Rosalie herself standing beside it.

You are free, madame?" asked Léontine.

"Yes, madame," Rosalie answered.

Then will you take monsieur to Paris to prepare them at the maison de santé to receive our brave chauffeur? I cannot get the place on the telephone. One can never get anybody at any time on the telephone in Paris or the suburbs."

"Perfectly, madame," answered Rosalie, and stepped to crank the motor.

I lifted my hat to Léontine and walked to the taxi; and as I passed the group at the gate I heard somebody say in an undertone:

"He looks badly frightened, that prédicateur."

As soon as we were clear of the gate I put my lips to the tube.

"Rosalie!"

Yes, m'sieu!"—for we had both dropped into French again.

"There's a road just below here that leads off to the right into the forest," said I. "Run in there, please. I am wounded, and must look after myself a little before we go into Paris."

"Very well," said Rosalie, and accelerated her speed. A few minutes later she slowed, then turned sharply to the right and began to creep up a little wood road. When presently it forked she took the less used of the two, which was no more than an alley cut for shooting, and presently came to a stop in a tangle of dwarf oaks and briers. Rosalie jumped down and opened the door.

"Are you badly hurt?" she asked anxiously, and in English.

"I got a bullet through my shoulder and a knife through my forearm," I answered. "The bullet wound doesn't bother, but the knife cut an artery, and I've tied it up so tight that it's giving me the devil. It will need a surgeon, I'm afraid, and I can't go to one in this soutane over a golf suit."

Rosalie knit her pretty brows and looked at me thoughtfully.

"Let's see it," says she. "I know something about wounds. I've often helped Sister Anne Marie. Let me see your arm."

The sleeve of the soutane was soaked; and, as Rosalie began to pull it off, she looked at her hands and gave a little scream. The tweed coat-sleeve was a mess; and while I was working out of it things began to grow dark again. As I began to get sensible I noticed a bandage she had put on my arm, and that the sun was rather low for so early in the afternoon, and wondered why.

"I'm glad you're awake," said she tremulously. "I was afraid you'd gone to sleep for good. You must have lost an awful lot of blood. I've been tying you up and trying to decide which was best for you—St. Lazare or a happy death."

I reached over, took her hand and kissed it several times.

"Neither," I answered. "I want life. I feel as fresh as a daisy! The first thing," I answered, "is for me to get out of these tweeds and back into my soutane. Now, if you'll kindly step over there while I crawl out of these tourist's clothes. Then we'll bury em and go to Paris. At the octroi I'll get another cab and go to where I live."

"No you won't," said Rosalie, "I'm going to take you to Sœur Anne Marie."

"Jamais de la vie!" I answered.

"See here!" said Rosalie, with a little jerk of her head. "I don't know what your name is, and you tell me you've been a crook; but you've been mighty square with me, and you are a countryman of mine and are badly hurt, and I'm not going to leave you in such a fix as this. There's bound to be a tremendous sensation over this thing, and every wounded man in Paris is apt to be overhauled. Now Sister Anne Marie and I have got a nice little apartment. So don't let's have any more nonsense!"

"But what would Sœur Anne Marie say?" I asked, rather weakly. "And what are you going to tell her?"

"Exactly what you ve told me. She's not the kind to lie to. The neighbours can think that you are a missionary who has come home ill—a relative of hers, or something of the sort. Sœur Anne Marie was once a surgical nurse in one of the hospitals, and I'd rather trust myself to her than to most surgeons."

So at last I agreed—and mighty thankfully, too, you can bet; and I managed to get out of my sporty knickerbockers and into the taxi. Rosalie made a bundle of the tweeds and promised to go to the little hotel the next day where I had been stopping and square up for me and fetch away my things. Then off we went, going in through Suresnes and the Bois, down the Champs-Elysées and across the Alexandre Trois Bridge, finally to pull up at the entrance of an impasse on the Rue Vaugirard.

"It's not much to look at from the outside," said Rosalie as I got out, "but it's not bad."

She nodded and smiled and said a few words to some of the people sitting outside their little shops, and they smiled and nodded back. It was plain enough that Rosalie was a local favourite and quite a celebrity in her quarter. I noticed, too, that the manner of a couple of women she stopped to speak to was mighty respectful. There was none of the free-and-easy cheek of the cabmen.

My arm and shoulder were quite numb now and felt as if turning to stone, and I guess I was pretty white and pinched-looking. Rosalie led the way, and I followed her into the impasse, then across a little paved court and up some dark, dilapidated stairs; but the house was clean enough, and the people we met seemed to be of a very decent class. We went to the top; then——

"Here we are," said Rosalie, and whipped out a key and opened the door. "Where are you, mother?" she called.

"I am here, deary!" came a cheerful voice from down the corridor. Rosalie turned to me.

"I will go and tell her. I won't be a minute. Go right in, Mr. ——" She paused, smiling.

"Clamart," I answered "Frank Clamart."

"Thanks. I won't be long." She gave me a nod and hurried off.

The room where she asked me to wait was a small studio, high-ceilinged, with a skylight and a long window that looked out on some fruit gardens. It is amazing the amount of cultivated ground there is behind the houses in all parts of Paris! Some of the sections between streets hold young farms.

These gardens belonged to some old mansion of the nobility, and the family had probably grown their fruit and vegetables there for several hundred years.

Rosalie's was one of those little, old-fashioned studio apartments of which there are so many in that quarter. There was nothing of bourgeois about it, for the few pieces of furniture were old and massive and pure-style, and were the sort you might expect to find in the residence of a prelate. There were some big, richly-framed pictures, which appeared to be old and valuable copies of some of the old masters—among them Murillo's "Virgin of the Conception," after the one in the Louvre; Tintoretto's "Crucifixion," and a small but very beautiful copy of Michelangelo's "Kneeling Angel." There were also some smaller paintings, two landscapes, and a "Madonna."

The most valuable article in the studio was a large and very handsome tapestry which looked to me like a genuine Gobelin, though the colours were of deeper and more neutral tints than you generally find in this manufacture. I judged that Sœur Anne Marie must have had at one time a little money, and that when the church goods were confiscated she had bought back in different sales some of the articles which had grown dear to her.

Here and there Rosalie's touch brightened the place. This was not always in keeping, but it was cheerful, and it looked as if Sœur Anne Marie tolerated the frivolous bits through her love for the girl. On an ancient piano in one corner lay a violin; and I hoped that the two played together, as I love music.

Altogether, my friend, it was not a usual situation. Here there were about to live for some days under the same roof—for I knew Sœur Anne Marie would take me in—a devout Mother Superior, who was likely enough the daughter of some old and noble family, an American girl from Wichita, Kansas, the daughter of an Irish cab-driver and the divorcée of a French count who had never so much as kissed her, she now earning a good living as the chauffeuse of a taxicab; myself, an ex-burglar and confidence man, coming there red-handed from a sincere and conscientious effort to kill an enemy, badly wounded, and feeling on the verge of physical collapse. We were an assorted trio, now, were we not?

These thoughts were going through my head to the accompaniment of a subdued but steady babble of talk from what seemed to me an interminable distance, for I had lost an awful lot of blood, and there was a humming in my ears which seemed to put other sounds way beyond. I was drowsy, too, and horribly thirsty; and all that I wanted was a long drink of water and to be allowed to sleep. I was almost sorry I had come there, since there had to be so much palaver; and then something tickled the palm of my hand. I thought it was a fly, and wriggled my fingers; but the tickling increased, and I looked down and saw a thin stream of bright red blood crawling like a wicked little snake from under the rim of the bandage. I slapped my arm—and it was wet through.

Thought I, "Here I am, bleeding to death while those women talk and talk and talk!" It would be a mean trick on Rosalie to bleed to death in her house, and I was just going to call out when the curtains parted and there came into the room the sweetest little lady, with those clear, wonderful eyes that make you feel about six years old and glad that you are still a child. Her face was very smooth, with wonderfully few wrinkles, her cheeks were a delicate pink, and her hair as silvery white as moonlight on the snow.

I couldn't see her very clearly, nor was I quite sure that she was real, as it seemed to me I'd already noticed two or three people come through those curtains—and one I thought was Tante Fi-Fi, until she smiled at me and disappeared. Besides, I'd pictured Sœur Anne Marie as big, and full of that sort of goodness that seems to say: "Here is virtue enough for myself and all hands who happen to need it; and most of you do."

Behind Sœur Anne Marie came Rosalie; and as her eyes fell on my face she gave a gasp.

"Ma Mère!" she cried. "But look!"

And then I fell asleep.

My friend, did you ever die and float round for a while in that fleecy-clouded between-world, finally to be dragged back to your troubles by the slack of your angel pants? Most people have; and the fleecy-cloud part is what most liquorists and dope-drunkards aim at, but shoot low and light in the slimy ooze, which feels like fleecy clouds up to a certain stage of the astral flight.

A wounded hero, however, who has lost a lot of red ink trying to assassinate an enemy, comes to earth easier than either the garden souse or the hot house dope; and I flittered back as lightly as M. Paulhan to find myself in a sweet, cool bed, with a sheet over me, some ruffles around the elbow of my free arm, a cool breeze wafting in the window, and a merle in a cage singing away from somewhere, while from the distance came the bad blending of shrill yelps which Paris makes, just as London makes a baritone rumble and New York a bass growl.

I was all alone in a pretty little room with chintz curtains and primrose wallpaper. There was an old armoire, an enamelled washstand, and a little ivoire table-de-nuit beside my bed, which was of enamelled iron with brass knobs. I took a look at myself, and judged that the fleecy-cloud effect might have been suggested by the cambric nighty I was in, which I strongly suspected to be a part of Rosalie's trousseau for which she had conceived a distaste. However, it was just the thing for a wounded burglar.

When I stirred there came a rustle from the next room, and there in the doorway stood Sœur Anne Marie—and Whistler could never have painted her! She was looking at me with the least bit of a smile on her lips, and there was something about her face that struck me as so familiar that for a moment I was almost startled. She saw the look, I think, for the wonderful eyes gathered me in and put me at my ease again; but I had already found out why her face or her expression—or whatever it was about her—had struck me as so familiar. It was the same look that Edith had—that "Don't be afraid; it's not so bad as you think" look. Mothers have it, I think, for their little boys.

"Rest tranquil, my son!" says she—that's the literal translation, and I don't know of anything that so expresses it.

"I do, ma Mère," I answered. "I was startled when you came in."

"And why should you be startled?"

"I took you for my other best friend. I think that all good women must have the same look. Did Rosalie tell you how I got hurt?"

"Yes. We will talk about that another time. Now try to sleep again; but, first, drink this."

She gave me one of those wonderful slushy combinations that modern doctors laugh at and that the French are so fond of. There must have been something good in it, for I felt better right off.

"Where is Madame Rosalie?" I asked.

"She is asleep. She was up all of last night, and has had no sleep to-day. Just at present Paris is full of Americans, and she is always in demand at the big hotels; but you yourself must sleep now. You have lost a great deal of blood." And after a few motherly directions she left me, drawing a curtain to keep out the glare.


CHAPTER V
QUICKSANDS

Sœur Anne Marie, for all her sweet gentleness, had the quiet finality of the angel with the Flaming Sword. Not a wriggle or so much as a word out of me were the orders for the next two days, not a glimpse of Rosalie or even a bon jour through the door; and as for a newspaper—what horror! She came in but little herself; so I did a Chinese rest cure, with the result that the evening of the second day my fever was gone, and Sœur Anne Marie said there was no more danger.

The next morning, as I rolled over, clean slept out, there came a little rustle at the door, and I looked round to see Rosalie peeping in at me.

"Good morning," said I. "Is my sentence commuted?"

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Like a hundred horse-power racer. Whenever you get tired holding that food——"

She laughed, and set down on my table de nuit a bowl of café au lait, some toast and a roll of fresh butter.

"And the arm—and shoulder?" she asked.

"I've forgot 'em!" And I started for the petit déjeuner in a way that made Rosalie smile. Wounds, after all, are nothing much to a man in perfect health. The blood-letting had made me feel nice and cool and relaxed. I always had too much blood; but what had knocked me over was getting it let out of me too suddenly. Nature gives good fighting men more blood than they really need.

Where is your angel companion?" I asked.

"She is visiting a woman who has a new baby. Isn't she a dear?"

"She is more than that. I can't say what she makes me feel. I'd rather not try. Why can't all children have mothers like that? The prisons would all have steeples on 'em in ten years, and graft would be as rare as cannibalism."

Rosalie nodded, looking rather thoughtful. "I suppose God cultivates them, just as He does rare flowers," said she. "When He thinks they're too good for us He takes them to heaven, where they'll be appreciated. There are actually people in the quarter who are nasty to Sœur Anne Marie simply because she is a nun."

"I'd like to catch 'em at it!" I growled.

Rosalie gave me a pensive look. You are a good deal of a savage, aren't you?" said she.

"My real nature is nearer the surface than most people's," I answered.

She nodded. "I know. I'm a bit that way myself. I could live a thousand years in a convent or work among the poor, or suffer, or enjoy, but I'd always be a bit of a savage. In spite of my convent training and Sœur Anne Marie's influence, it blazes out once in a while."

"How does it blaze out?" I asked.

Her colour deepened. Rosalie's skin was of that clear sort that the weather seems to have no effect upon, and the rich blood was always going and coming in a way that was very pretty to see. Her face was round rather than oval, and wore habitually an expression partly alert, partly saucy. It was not a beautiful face, nor was it by any means aristocratic in feature, the nose being small, turned up at the end and rather low in the middle, while her upper lip was pulled up in an habitual pout which showed the red, and the lower one was tucked in at the corners, like a baby's. You see lots of faces like Rosalie's in the front row of a pretty chorus, with figures to match; but Rosalie's expression had something which most of the show girls lack—and that was force and character, partly the result of a resolute little chin and partly from a sort of childish purity, such as you sometimes notice under the big hood of a Sister of Charity. One felt instinctively that she was a good girl; also that the person who tried to make her otherwise stood a good chance of getting hurt. Rosalie possessed the inherited virtue of the Irish girls, who are as proverbially careful of themselves as they are bountiful to the man with whom they choose to mate. A Celtic trait that; and French girls well brought up are very similar.

"I must go and start the déjeuner," said Rosalie. "Here's the Matin and here's the Herald. Sœur Anne Marie said you might see the papers if you had no fever—and you look cool enough." And with a bright little nod she went out.

Just as I had expected, the papers were full of the attempted robbery at Baron Hertzfeld's; and the artistes who assisted at the luncheon party must have thought they'd struck a good vein of advertising value.

Chu-Chu, who gave the name of Numas, was the hero of the yarn. He told how he had seen the thief climb over the wall and had followed him into the house and up the stairs. Spying from the curtains, Numas had seen him start to work on the safe, when he had waited for about five minutes hoping that somebody might come and assist in the capture. Numas had not wished to call or to go to look for assistance, for fear the thief might escape, but had finally determined to tackle him single-handed. In the scuffle he had managed to disarm the marauder, and had shot at him with his own revolver and received a knife-thrust in return. Then another chauffeur had come to his aid, but the burglar had managed to overcome them both and make his escape.

The beautiful Princess Petrovski, who was such a familiar figure in the theatres and fashionable restaurants, and was so often to be seen at the races with Prince Kharkoff—the chap who had got me deported, you know—had taken the chauffeur for the afternoon, her own car undergoing repairs. Acting from a sentiment impossible to commend sufficiently, she had ordered that the hero be sent to a maison de santé in her own quarter, where she might be able personally to superintend his nursing.

Then followed a lot of rot about the attempted burglary and the heroism of the other chauffeur. I had taken him for a wine-bibbing footman, but it appears he was a large, fat, private chauffeur in a fancy uniform. He described how he had first heard a suspicious noise in the conservatory—more flower-pots knocked off the shelf, I suppose—but, on entering the house, the pistol-shot had rung out and he had dashed up the stairs—this last was manifestly untrue, and in my private opinion he had been taking a little snoop round on his own hook. He had entered the boudoir to find his comrade, Numas, grappling with the desperado, a broad-shouldered man of prodigious strength. The chauffeur had flung himself upon the marauder, in spite of the fact that he was himself unarmed; but he was not in time to save his colleague from being stabbed, while he himself, though, as any one could see, a powerful man, was flung aside as though he had been a child, and dealt a blow upon the side of the jaw which had stretched him senseless on the floor.

The burglar was described as a man rather above the average height, very broad of shoulder, and dressed in ordinary street clothes, rather light in colour. He was said to have had dark hair and a black moustache—and here I began to rub my eyes. As you see, I am fairly tall, but I am by no means heavily built and of medium colouring. I was smooth-shaven, and wore tweed knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket.

A second's thought, however, showed me the reason. Chu-Chu naturally did not want me to be taken, so he had put them off as much as he could, considering that one or two others might have caught a glimpse of me. As for the fat chauffeur, he was a fool; and had been so excited that if Chu-Chu had described me as a red Indian in warpaint and feathers he would never have denied it.

The funniest part of all, though, was that the article went on to say that, in the opinion of the police and others, more or less au courant of the criminal world, the daring burglar was none other than the notorious Chu-Chu le Tondeur. Everything went to establish this identity—the physical appearance of the thief, his superhuman strength and activity, and his cleverness in escaping unseen except for a waiter, who caught a glimpse of him as he plunged into the shrubbery; the speed and skill with which he had done his work, for the door of the strong-box was on the point of being pierced, though Numas said that he had waited for only about five minutes in the corridor before trying to seize him, and had then made the attempt single-handed, as he was afraid to cry out or to leave the spot in search of help, fearing that the burglar might escape. When, after what had seemed to him not over ten minutes at the outside, he had decided to tackle the thief single-handed, the hole into the lock was already drilled.

The most significant fact, however, was that the object of the robbery was to steal a valuable diamond tiara which had been purchased by Monsieur le Baron von Hertzfeld as a gift for a friend. Intercepting gems in this way was known to be a specialty of le Tondeur's; and so on.

I laid the paper down, smiling to myself. Then it struck me all at once that here I had interfered with Ivan's schemes again, and I stopped smiling. Yes, come to think of it, the grin had better be kept for another time. Ivan was neutral so far as Chu-Chu's and my feud went; but breaking up trade was another business. Ivan had, no doubt, put Chu-Chu on this job, Léontine to dispose of the loot afterwards; so that, in jumping on Chu-Chu's back at this particular moment, I had probably done the concern out of at least a hundred thousand francs. And, now that I come to think of it, Léontine herself had looked rather sick when I met her in the park.

This was mighty serious business—more serious, as a matter of fact, than my feud with Chu-Chu. Ivan had squared things between us when he gave me back Mary Dalghren's pearls, and he had acted handsomely and on the level. Now, he might easily say to himself: "Being neutral is one thing, but standing pat while this virtuous young man interferes with my star worker, and takes the bread out of the mouths of the lot of us, is another. I will give orders that he be eliminated."

And I knew that, once such orders were issued from headquarters, it would be all up with me. Those ferrets of Ivan's would have been hanging from my throat in a week's time, no matter how deep I burrowed. The association was rooted in Paris like a cancer, and there was no telling where its fibres might penetrate. If Ivan made up his mind that I was de trop I would probably never know what finished me. The best thing, I thought, would be to go to Ivan and tell him how the thing had happened, and assure him that I had no intention of interfering with his work, even if I had chucked the game myself. Sounds a bit weak-livered? Well, maybe so; but, after all, there are limits to the nerve-strain a man can stand when it's long-continued; also, I'd like to state, it's the dash of caution with his courage that makes a man a master and carries him the greatest distance.

I went ahead and finished the papers, and was glad to see by the society column that Mr. and Mrs. John Cuttynge were touring the Lake Country in their sixty horse-power Franco-Helvetia, one of our new cars. I hoped they would stay across the Channel until I finished up my affair with Chu-Chu, as John and I looked too much alike to make it safe for him to knock about Paris.

Then Rosalie stuck her head in to tell me to be good, and was off for the afternoon and maybe most of the night. It struck me that if I had a wife I wouldn't want her to be a chauffeuse. Rosalie was well fitted for the job, because she had that peculiar combination of cheek and good-natured repartee which will take a woman almost anywhere, and can turn a bad intention into a laugh.

I was getting a bit tired of myself when I heard a little rustle and Sœur Anne Marie came in. She gave me a quick, smiling look, then said:

"There is no need to take your temperature, mon ami. Another day of such good behaviour and you can sit up. Now I will dress your arm."

So she went ahead, and I must say she was a master hand at it. The wound, though a nasty one, was so clean that Sœur Anne Marie was surprised.

"My son," said she, "if only your heart were as clean as your blood and tissues you would be a strong worker in God's garden."

"And what makes you think that it is not, ma Mère?" I asked.

"I do not think so," she answered; "but from what Rosalie tells me I fear that your soul is sick. You told her that you had an enemy whom you were seeking to destroy, did you not?"

"Yes," I answered. "That is quite true; but this man is not only my enemy, but one to all society. It is Chu-Chu le Tondeur; and every year of his life—every month, one might almost say—adds its new list of thievery and murder. Besides, if I do not manage to kill him, he will certainly kill me."

Her great, intelligent eyes rested thoughtfully on mine.

"It were perhaps better that he should destroy you, my son," she answered, "than that you should destroy your own soul. Will you tell me your story? Perhaps I may be able to help you."

It seemed to me that I owed her this confidence, so I told her all that had happened, holding back only the names. When I had finished she sat for a while, thinking deeply. Then she said:

"It is just as I thought when I first looked into your eyes. Your soul is not one of those poor, unfortunate, deformed ones. It has been ill, and now it is beginning to recover. Your own strength must make this recovery complete. My son, your duty is very plain."

"Perhaps you mean," said I, "that I ought to take the whole affair to the police?"

She nodded her silvery head.

"But that would be impossible," said I quickly. "I passed my word to the Chief that I would not betray him or any of his crowd."

"There are times, mon ami," said Sœur Anne Marie, "when it is necessary to break one's word rather than cling to a wrong resolve."

"Don't tell me that!" I cried. "My word's the only god I've got. It's the only thing that's never failed me!"

Maybe my voice was rough, for she drew back a little and seemed startled and a bit frightened. Then she looked at me, and her eyes softened.

"And you have always kept your word?" she asked.

"Always," I answered. "I don't give it lightly; but, once given, I stick to it."

Then, in this case, I will not advise you to break it, since to do so would be to break faith with yourself. But there is something else which has occurred to me. This man who is at the head of the criminal organisation is, you tell me, so powerful that if you were to incur his enmity you would feel as if already dead?"

"That is true," I answered.

"And if he were to forbid you to destroy this terrible criminal, Chu-Chu, you would not dare?"

"It would not be worth my while to try."

Then is it not possible that your enemy might feel the same way—that if he were forbidden by this same Chief to murder you he would not dare?"

I hesitated. It had never occurred to me to ask Ivan to call off Chu-Chu under pain of punishment from headquarters. Yet, when I came to think of it, I doubted that Chu-Chu would dare to go ahead against Ivan's strict injunction any more than I would. Sœur Anne Marie saw the hesitation in my face, and went on quickly:

"You tell me you have twice attempted the life of this man, and that he has narrowly escaped; that you have been saved from being a murderer by a miracle." (That was her way of looking at it.) "Do you not think it possible your enemy would be quite willing to obey the order for a truce if he knew you would do the same—especially since he would hardly dare to disobey? Why do you not see this Chief and suggest to him that he put a stop to the feud?"

"Then you would advise me to discontinue my efforts to put an end to a dangerous enemy to society?" I muttered.

"No, my son. I have already advised you to take the matter to the proper authorities, and you have told me that this was something which you could not do and remain true to yourself. So I urge you next, since you cannot protect society with due authority, at least to keep your own hands clean of blood. Might not this be possible?"

I thought hard for a moment.

"Ma Mère," I said finally, "I much doubt that it could be done. This enemy of mine is a human tiger, and I doubt if he knows what real fear is. In this way the man is superhuman—or, perhaps, less than human. For another thing, I doubt if the Chief himself would dare issue such an order; for le Tondeur, after all, is still a member of the association, while I am a renegade and a foreigner. It would be dangerous, I think, for the Chief to at tempt such a thing. It might weaken his influence with his followers; and, besides, Chu-Chu might kill him, secretly and without leaving any trace, if he thought himself in danger."

She was silent for a moment, then asked:

"At any rate, could you not see the Chief and ask his opinion? You tell me he has shown himself to be friendly disposed to you. Could you not have a talk with him?"

"That is possible," I answered.

"And, until you have heard what he has to say," she went on eagerly, "will you not promise me that you will not raise your hand against your enemy?"

"Not even in self-defence?" I asked quickly.

"It will not be necessary. God will protect you, and you shall go forth clothed in my prayers."

It occurred to me that the dear lady's prayers had not saved her from being driven from the convent and the institution broken up; but, of course, I did not hint at such a thing. What she asked of me was pretty stiff, as, for all I knew, Chu-Chu might be at that moment on the stairs. A flesh wound in the muscles of the chest isn't much, and the man had the vitality of a gorilla or timber wolf. I hesitated.

"You do not realise what you ask of me, Sœur Anne Marie," I said. "It is like sending a man into the arena unarmed."

She looked at me sorrowfully. "It is a terrible thing for a religieuse to nurse a man back to strength in the knowledge that, so soon as he is healed, he means to go forth to slay a fellowman," said she. "But if you are unwilling, my son, I will not urge you."

I raised myself on one elbow. "I will promise you this," said I, "that until I have seen the Chief and heard what he has to say I will take no offensive action. I will strike only in self-defence and to save my own life—if I should get the chance. And I will promise you, also, ma Mère, that if the matter can be settled without bloodshed it shall be so."

The old lady leaned over and patted my shoulder.

"Thank you, my son," said she. "God will reward you!"

A fortnight saw me practically sound again. The bullet hole in my shoulder had been drilled clean and closed up again without a drop of pus. The knife-wound was also clean, though in healing it left the outer side of my hand rather cold and numb.

Then came the time to say good-bye and it wasn't easy; for I had grown mighty found of these two sweet, brave women, each so different from the other, yet in a way so much alike. They liked me too—that was plain enough from their actions; and all three of us knew it was pretty uncertain when and where we would meet again. Naturally I had not stuck my head out of the door since the afternoon I came to the little studio apartment; and, once I had left it, I did not intend to risk going back. Neither would it do to meet either of them outside. Once Chu-Chu discovered that they were my friends, there was no telling what horrible thing might happen.

I had decided to leave at midnight and go straight to Ivan's house. Sœur Anne Marie was suffering from a headache and at nine o'clock I made her go to bed. She gave me her blessing and made me promise to send her a few words from time to time. Rosalie was resting, for she had come in at about two, after an eighteen-hour trick, and was going out again to get on the boulevards before the theatres were over.

My plan was to leave a little after Rosalie and go directly to Ivan's house, over by the Parc Monceau. After looking the ground over carefully, I would go in and try my luck with Ivan. It was very possible that I might not get out alive, as Ivan might consider the opportunity of suppressing me too good a one to let go by, and the armed weasels that were his servants would make quick and quiet work of it. I was getting rather tired of the whole filthy business, however, and asked nothing better than to have it over with, one way or the other. I felt like the old man whose wife had been a bedridden invalid for five years, when he said to the physician: "Wa'al, doc, I do wish she'd git better or—somethin!"

A little before ten Rosalie came out, clad in a kimono, her hair tumbled about her ears and her eyes red-rimmed and tired.

"I couldn't sleep," said she; "so I thought I'd come out and talk to you. Oh! Isn't it all horrid?"

She caught her breath and covered her face with her hands. She was pretty well used up, poor girl, for the tourist crowd had kept her on the trot night and day, and my own affair had got horribly on her nerves. More than once I'd cursed myself for a fool for having let her take me home.

"Rosalie," said I, "you are all fagged out. You've been going it too strong. Can't you take all night in and rest up a little?"

She turned and gave me a queer, sarcastic sort of look.

"Rest up!" she echoed scornfully. "I'd go crazy and jump down into the plum trees."

"That's what comes of getting overtired," said I.

"Oh!" snapped Rosalie—"is it?"

She stood under the glow of the tall reading lamp, nervously straightening the books and papers on the centre table. Her chestnut hair, which was full of natural waves, glowed and glistened like spun gold as she moved her head. She turned her back to me, and I couldn't help noticing how sweetly her pretty little neck rose from the fold of the kimono. Her restless hands stole in and out among the papers; and then, as I watched her thoughtfully, the rounded shoulders gave a little heave, there was the sound of a smothered sob and her bare arms slipped up out of the flowing sleeves as she covered her face with both hands.

"Rosalie!" said I sharply, and sprang up from the divan where I was sitting.

She turned away from me. The sobs came quickly and noiselessly.

My friend, I've seen some harrowing things in my sinful life, but I don't know when I've been so upset as I was at the sight of that little girl, sobbing quietly under the lamp. Even though it were no more than a combination of heat and overwork and insufficient sleep—and the chance of losing a friend who had grown companionable—it was mighty pathetic. Women or children in trouble always hit me hard; and the next moment I was standing beside Rosalie, my arm behind her and my hand resting on her shoulder.

"Rosalie," I said, "don't cry, little girl. There's nothing to cry about. It's coming out all right—you wait and see."

She shook her head, her face still covered with her hands and her body rocking back and forth. Once or twice before, when she had been tired and nervous, I'd seen her on the edge of a breakdown; but she'd always managed to laugh and chatter it off. This time, however, the storm had caught her aback, and her body shook and shuddered under the struggle. Yet, game little girl that she was, she was as silent as a wounded bird for fear of disturbing Sœur Anne Marie.

I left her for a moment to close the door of the corridor. Rosalie tottered to the divan and flung herself down in the corner. Her sobs were almost convulsions, and I got frightened. There's only one thing to do when a woman gets to crying like that, and that is to comfort her, no matter what comes of it. So I sat down beside her on the divan, slid my arm under her shoulders and transferred the chestnut head and the round arms and all to my own chest. She pulled back a little at first, but feebly—then yielded; in fact, she went me one better, for her pretty, round arms slipped out of the kimono and went up round my neck and her tear-stained face was buried under the rim of my jaw.

For several minutes I held her so; and it must have been the best thing to do, because the sobs slowed down and stopped and her breathing grew quieter. To help the cure, I lifted her face and kissed her eyes and lips. This was good for the sobs if not for the breathing, and I could feel her heart hammering against my chest.

Rosalie was fast coming to herself, however, and pretty soon she stirred uneasily, drawing her arms from round my neck and letting her head slip down against my shoulder.

"Whatever must you think of me, Frank?" said she.

"Just what I've always thought—that you're a brave, warm-hearted darling, and as good as they make 'em. After all, we're only human."

She caught her breath; then her laugh rippled out, quavering and unsteady.

"Look in the glass, Frank. What a picture!"

I looked across the room and saw the reflection of a young priest in a long black cassock sitting on a divan with his arms full of an uncommonly pretty girl with very red cheeks, hair tumbled round her ears, and a flowered kimono far enough open to show a very demoralising throat. That part of it was corrected while I looked in the glass and Rosalie drew herself up, then turned and looked at me thoughtfully.

"That was a bad breakdown, Frank—but I feel better now. I was 'all in,' as they say at home. You are a sort of Rock of Refuge, aren't you? I wonder how many men there are in this town to whom a girl could cling and cry with safety?" She stared at me, her eyes curious and alight. "You may be an ex-burglar, Frank, but——"

"But I never stole what I was trusted with," I answered. "Now go wash your face, my dear, and put on your dinky business clothes, and we'll eat a bite, and——"

"Don't!" She held out her hand.

"But, Rosalie, it's not so terrible. Something good will turn up, you see. And I'll write you every day."

"You might come into the Bon Cocher sometimes."

"It's too dangerous—for you, I mean."

"I'm not afraid."

"You weren't afraid a minute or two ago. Somebody's got to be afraid sometimes."

She looked at me with eyes curious and alight. Then she said:

"You are right, my rock of refuge. I shall do as you say. Now I'll go and put on my business clothes—and you can hook me up." She laughed gaily—a little too gaily, it seemed to me.

So she got into her khakis and I hooked her up—and dear old Sœur Anne Marie, who had put me in the most dangerous position of all my life by extracting the promise she had, resting and, I hope, sleeping in a room close by, and never guessing at the fierce little drama that had been played out right alongside her! For, if I had sat tight and been a rock of refuge and all that, let me tell you that it was not because I wanted to, but because my soul wasn't quite as sick as Sœur Anne Marie may have thought. Or maybe she knew it quite well, and had a pretty good idea of what might and did happen, and was lying there loving us and blessing us, and putting out prayers for us that governed the whole thing and made the naughty little devils crawl under the divan with their tails between their legs. I've seen too much of Bad not to know that Good can use a slung-shot when need be.

Rosalie stirred up an omelet, and we ate it with a bit of salad, some brioche and a bottle of beer. You'd have thought we were starting out for a joy ride and to do the town!

Then, our little supper finished and the clocks striking the half-hour—half-past eleven—I got up quickly.

"I'm off!" said I. "Au 'voir, my dear!"

Rosalie's face went white.

"Not—yet!" says she falteringly.

"Time's up. Be a good girl, and don't get nervous and blue."

She threw herself into my arms. I kissed her, then turned to the door and went out and down the dark stairs into the street. The last I saw of Rosalie she was standing in the middle of the room, staring with wide eyes and pale cheeks.

Once in the street, I'm ashamed to say I soon forgot—or, at least, put out of my mind—Rosalie sobbing on my shoulder and the look of her face when the door closed between us. The street was always a tonic for me—just what drink is to some and women to others, and the sea or the woods or the road to still others. Whenever I've been down I've slipped into the street, like an ash-cat, and there I've gradually bucked up and taken a fresh grip and got a new interest in things. The look of the houses and the guess at what's going on behind their walls, and the glimpse at the faces that pass you—let me tell you, my friend, that's my wine! It's to me what the jungle is to the hunter of big game, or the ice floe to the arctic explorer, or the desert to the Bedouin. My place is in the street—that maze of human purpose; it's my hunting ground—or was. And when the curiosity to know what was behind those inscrutable walls got too strong, or was mixed with the need of whatever there was to be found there, I went in and had a look round, and I seldom came out empty-handed.

Talk about crime! Faugh! I was a criminal, just as we all are; only when I got crowded a little I went after what I needed. I knew that if I made a false step or blundered the least bit they'd nab me and tuck me away for years and years where there'd be no more street or jungle or sea or desert, or freedom of any kind. And yet I risked it. Sometimes I think that many criminals take these risks merely because there is no other class that loves its liberty so much. Criminals are all gamblers, more or less; and, though I don't believe in such a thing as a "criminal class," I do believe in a class of gamblers. And I think that most of the real criminals—mind you, I'm not speaking of those silly, pitiful, weak honest folks who fall to a temptation because the payment on the car is due and the wife has run up a milliner's bill—the real criminal, the wolf of society, loves to play with the trap. He loves it just as another type, still higher in the scale of perversity, loves to gamble with his life—or another man with his fortune.

Well, the street was my passion; and when you've got that city-prowling in your blood there's no such place to gratify it as Paris or London. American cities are laid out too much on the plan of a safe-deposit vault or a model chicken farm. Everything is squared and angled and numbered and tallied and patrolled, and when a burglar wants to do a job he doesn't go out and slip over a wall, with his little kit swung from his shoulder, he turns lobbyist and starts with the mayor, and works down until he finds somebody whom he can "fix." That's not sport—it's business. No wonder American crooks call burglary and pocket-picking and a bill through the legislature all by the same name—"graft"!

It's different in the Old World cities, however, where a man goes about his job as a hunter might—but, there, I'm forgetting that I'd chucked all that and was out for something even bigger than cracking a safe—my life and the right to live in the open. And I was handicapped now, as a hunter might be who had lost all his ammunition. I'd given Sœur Anne Marie my word not to strike except to save my life—and if I'd promised her to roam round unarmed I'd have felt more secure, but this promise was good only until I'd had my talk with Ivan. So you see I was in some hurry to have this over with.

If Ivan thought it would be worth his while to call off the feud between Chu-Chu and myself, there was the possibility that he might manage it through Chu-Chu's avarice. Chu-Chu loved money even more than he loved revenge, and he had found out that he couldn't do much without Ivan. The Shearer had wonderful cunning, ruthless methods of getting rid of obstacles, the cautious but desperate courage of a wolf and a dexterity that was equal to that of any safe expert or prestidigitator; but his lacking quality was imagination. Once given the data and general directions, there was no living man so capable of pulling off a job; but without these Chu-Chu might easily have gone a year without turning a single trick. He had no criminal initiative. He was like a trained hunting dog of marvellous scent and instinct; taken out by the master, he could do his work and delight in it—left alone, he would have scratched his fleas round the house through the whole hunting season.

Ivan was, in his way, as remarkable as Chu-Chu. Through his underground system—which, as a matter of fact, was probably nine-tenths his own imagination—he always had a job on hand. Ivan seemed to know in some clairvoyant way when valuable jewels were about to make a journey, and where; and how much gold was in such and such a bank; and who had just bought a rope of pearls or a tiara or a dog-collar, and when they were to be delivered. Ivan had all of the data clear and distinct for the man detailed for the job; and he would let it pass unless he could see the whole business from beginning to end. Chu-Chu was his star man for this sort of work, and I had an idea that he operated on half shares, though Ivan made the bluff of paying only 15 per cent. for such jobs as he himself outlined.

It seemed to me, therefore, that Ivan, having no particular interest in the feud between us and having as much use for Chu-Chu as Chu-Chu had for Ivan, might persuade the Shearer that there was nothing in it, and rig up a truce between us. Ivan did not want me to kill Chu-Chu. When he told me to go ahead I think he felt quite sure that Chu-Chu would finish my affair within the week. On the other hand, I doubted very much that he wanted Chu-Chu to kill me. In spite of what I had said to him, Ivan would not be quite sure that I had not made a confidant of some friend who might get up and do a lot of talking if I were picked up somewhere with a knife through my gizzard. Ivan's methods were all for quiet and no scandal. He was, in his way, just like the church-going head of a big, dishonest corporation, and no doubt really felt himself a person of worth and consequence. He supported a charity for tuberculous children, and the devil knows how many needy young women. Ivan, all things being equal, would be quick to see the advantage of a peace treaty between a man who might yet bring him great profit and another who might land him in the Andamans. The only question was, Could he do it? And that's what I was going to try to find out.