“You said you were going to send a cable to your office. I was waiting to take it to the post office. They make so much chi-chi about cables there. They have so few. I did not think you would like to deal with them yourself.”
“That’s very good of you, Miss Kolin. Here it is. I’ve done my report, too. Air-mail that, will you?”
“Of course.”
She left some money on the table for the breakfast and was going through the lobby to the street when the desk clerk came after her and said something in French. George caught the word “téléphone.”
She nodded to the clerk and glanced at George-in an almost embarrassed way, he thought.
“My call to Paris,” she said. “I had cabled my friends that I was on my way home. I wished to tell them that I would be delayed. How long do you think we will be?”
“Two or three days, I’d say.” He turned to go. “Pretty good work that, to get through to Paris from here in an hour,” he added.
“Yes.”
He saw her enter the telephone booth and begin speaking as he went upstairs, back to his room to sleep.
At eight o’clock that evening they met the old man with the Renault again, and began their second journey to the Sergeant’s headquarters.