Part 3 (1/2)
”Only one copy of it, I think,” he retorted; ”the other you would have sold to whichever spy of the Danish or Russian Governments happened to have employed you in this discreditable business”
”How did you know?” I said involuntarily
”Through a very siood M Ratichon,” he replied blandly ”You are a very clever man, no doubt, but the cleverest of us is at times apt to make a mistake You made two, and I profited by them Firstly, after my sister and I left you this afternoon, you neverinformation about the mysterious theft of the docu You left your office and strolled for a while on the quays; you had an excellent dinner at the Restaurant des Anglais; then you settled down to your coffee and liqueur Well, ood M Ratichon, obviously you would have been more active in the matter if you had not known exactly where and when and how to lay your hands upon the document, for the recovery of which roaned I had not been quite so circuht--
”I have had so to do with police work in h not of late years; but ether rusty andmy sister's visit to you this afternoon I noticed the blouse and cap of a co in a bundle in a corner of your roo fever since he discovered his loss, he kept just sufficient presence ofabout that loss to any of the Chancellerie officials, but to go straight home to his apartments in the Rue Royale and to send for my sister and for me When we came to him he was already partly delirious, but he pointed to a parcel and a letter which he had brought away from his office The parcel proved to be an empty box and the letter a blank sheet of paper; but the e at the Chancellerie elicited the fact that a cos in the course of the ood M Ratichon; not a very grave one, perhaps, but I have been in the police, and soht of that blouse and cap in your office, I could not help connecting it with the cous parcel and letter to my future brother-in-law a few minutes before that mysterious and unexplained altercation took place in the corridor”
Again I groaned I felt as a child in the hands of that horrid creature who seehts which had run riot through my mind these past twenty hours
”It was all very siood M Ratichon,” now concluded my tormentor still quite amiably ”Another time you will have to be more careful, will you not? You will also have to bestow more confidence upon your partner or servant Directly I had seen that commissionnaire's blouse and cap, I set to work to make friends with M Theodore When my sister and I left your office in the Rue Daunou, we found hi for us at the bottoue: he suspected that you were up to soame in which you did not mean him to have a share; he also told us that you had spent two hours in laborious writing, and that you and he both lodged at a dilapidated little inn, called the 'Grey Cat,' in Passy I think he was rather disappointed that we did not shower more questions, and therefore more emoluments, upon him Well, after I had denounced this house to the police as a Bonapartiste club, and saw it put under the usual consigne, I bribed the corporal of the gendare of it to let me have Theodore's company for the little job I had in hand, and also to clear the back garden of sentries so as to give you a chance and the desire to escape
All the rest you know Money will do ood M Ratichon, and you see how simple it all was It would have been still more simple if the stolen document had not been such an important one that the very existence of it must be kept a secret even from the police So I could not have you shadowed and arrested as a thief in the usual enious copy, which is all that matters Would to God,” he added with a suppressed curse, ”that I could get hold equally easily of the Secret Service agent to who to sell the honour of your country!”
Then it was that--though broken in spirit and burning with thoughts of the punishment I would mete out to Theodore--my full faculties returned to et him?”
”Five hundred francs,” he replied without hesitation ”Can you find him?”
”Make it a thousand,” I retorted, ”and you shall have hiive me five hundred francs now,” I insisted, ”and another five hundred when you have the reed,” he said iain I waited in silence until he had taken a pocket-book from the inside of his coat and counted out five hundred francs, which he kept in his hand
”Now--” he commanded
”The man,” I then announced cals at the hostelry of the 'Grey Cat' to- at nine o'clock”
”Good,” rejoined M Geoffroy ”We shall be there”
Hethem vanished when I saw Theodore's bleary eyes fixed ravenously upon them
”Another five hundred francs,” M Geoffroy went on quietly, ”will be yours as soon as the spy is in our hands”
I did get that further five hundred of course, for M Charles Saurez was punctual to the minute, and M Geoffroy was there with the police to apprehend hiht have had twenty thousand--!
And I had to give Theodore fifty francs on the transaction, as he threatenedhiain after that until-- But you shall judge
CHAPTER II
A FOOL'S PARADISE