"Isn't that reasonable?"
Hauteville shook his head. "He wouldn't have risked so much for that. How did he know that you hadn't copied the name and given it to one of us—say to me?"
"Ah, if I only had," sighed the detective.
"How did he know that you wouldn't remember the name? Can't you remember it—at all?"
"That's what I've been trying to do," replied the other gloomily, "I've tried and tried, but the name won't come back. I put those pieces together and read the words distinctly, the name and the address. It was a foreign name, English I should say, and the street was an avenue near the Champs Elysées, the Avenue d'Eylau, or the Avenue d'Iena, I cannot be sure. I didn't fix the thing in my mind because I had it in my pocket, and in the work of the night it faded away."
"A great pity! Still, this man could neither have known that nor guessed it. He took the address from you on a chance, but his chief purpose must have been to impress you with his knowledge and his power."
Coquenil stared at his brown seal ring and then muttered savagely: "How did he know the name of that infernal canary bird?"
The judge smiled. "He has established some very complete system of surveillance that we must try to circumvent. For the moment we had better decide upon immediate steps."
With this they turned to a fresh consideration of the case. Already the machinery of justice had begun to move. Martinez's body and the weapon had been taken to the morgue for an autopsy, the man's jewelry and money were in the hands of the judge, and photographs of the scene of the tragedy would be ready shortly as well as plaster impressions of the alleyway footprints. An hour before, as arranged the previous night, Papa Tignol had started out to search for Kittredge's lodgings, since the American, when questioned by Gibelin at the prison, had obstinately refused to tell where he lived and an examination of his quarters was a matter of immediate importance.
It was not Papa Tignol, however, who was to furnish this information, but the discomfited Gibelin whose presence in the outer office was at this moment announced by the judge's clerk.