At one o'clock on the following day, Monsieur Dupont sat in his room waiting for Tranter. At half-past one he had become impatient. At two he seized the telephone directory, and, a minute later, the instrument. At two-thirty he obtained his number.
The answer to his first question stiffened him into an attitude of rigid tensity.
"Mr. Tranter is not in, sir," a voice told him. "He has disappeared."
"Disappeared?" Monsieur Dupont echoed sharply.
"We do not know what has happened to him. He went out last night at nine o'clock, and has not returned."
"Not returned...." the listener muttered.
"We are getting anxious," the voice went on. "He left orders for his supper, and there is no doubt that he intended to return. We have telephoned to the hospitals and the police stations, but nothing has been heard of him. Do you happen to know where he was going?"
There was a moment's pause. Monsieur Dupont's hands were clenched so tightly round the instrument that the veins stood out on them like cords.
"Yes," he said slowly, "I know where he was going."
He rose quickly.