"Yes. It is worth while," Hanaud answered listlessly. "But remember to telephone to me before you go. I shall be here. I will tell you if I have any news. Good night."
Jim Frobisher left him standing in the middle of the room. Before he had closed the door Hanaud had forgotten his presence. For he was saying to himself over and over again, almost with an accent of despair: "I must be quick! I must be very quick!"
Frobisher walked briskly down to the Place Ernest Renan and the Rue de la Liberté, dwelling upon Hanaud's injunction to examine the façade of Notre Dame. He must keep that in mind and obey it in the morning. But that night was not yet over for him.
As he reached the mouth of the little street of Charles-Robert he heard a light, quick step a little way behind him—a step that seemed familiar. So when he turned into the street he sauntered and looked round. He saw a tall man cross the entrance of the street very quickly and disappear between, the houses on the opposite side. The man paused for a second under the light of a street lamp at the angle of the street, and Jim could have sworn that it was Hanaud. There were no hotels, no lodgings in this quarter of the city. It was a quarter of private houses. What was Hanaud seeking there?
Speculating upon this new question, he forgot the façade of Notre Dame; and upon his arrival at the Maison Crenelle a little incident occurred which made the probability that he would soon remember it remote. He let himself into the house with a latchkey which had been given to him, and turned on the light in the hall by means of a switch at the side of the door. He crossed the hall to the foot of the stairs, and was about to turn off the light, using the switch there to which Ann Upcott had referred, when the door of the treasure-room opened. Betty appeared in the doorway.
"You are still up?" he said in a low voice, half pleased to find her still afoot and half regretful that she was losing her hours of sleep.
"Yes," and slowly her face softened to a smile. "I waited up for my lodger."
She held the door open, and he followed her back into the room.
"Let me look at you," she said, and having looked, she added: "Jim, something has happened to-night."
Jim nodded.