CHAPTER XIX
TOUCHING A YELLOW TOOTH
It was a quarter past four, and still night, when Coquenil left the Hôtel des Étrangers; he wore a soft black hat pulled down over his eyes, and a shabby black coat turned up around his throat; and he carried the leather bag taken from the automobile. The streets were silent and deserted, yet the detective studied every doorway and corner with vigilant care, while a hundred yards behind him, in exactly similar dress, came Papa Tignol, peering into the shadows with sharpest watchfulness against human shadows bent on harming M. Paul.
So they moved cautiously down the Boulevard St. Michel, then over the bridge and along the river to Notre-Dame, whose massive towers stood out in mysterious beauty against the faintly lighted eastern sky. Here the leader paused for his companion.
"There's nothing," he said, as the latter joined him.
"Nothing."
"Good! Take the bag and wait for me, but keep out of sight."
"Entendu."
Coquenil walked across the square to the cathedral, moving slowly, thinking over the events of the night. They had crossed the track of the assassin, that was sure, but they had discovered nothing that could help in his capture except the fact of the long little finger. The man had left absolutely nothing in his room at the hotel (this they verified with the help of false keys), and had never returned after the night of the crime, although he had taken the room for a month, and paid the rent in advance. He had made two visits to this room, one at about three in the afternoon of the fatal day, when he spent an hour there, and entered Kittredge's room, no doubt, for the boots and the pistol; the other visit he made the same night when he tried to return the boots and was prevented from doing so. How he must have cursed that little photographer!