Berry sat down carefully.
"I shall not," he said, "keep you long. This is not my car. It belongs to my cousin, Captain Jonathan Mansel. Look at the Pass, please, and check me. Captain Mansel was born at Guildford, Surrey, is it not so? Good. Now I have given the birthplace." He shot out an accusing hand. "Ask that gentleman the date."
For the second time the tough exploded, but with a difference. This time the wrath was genuine, the passion real. There was something beastly about it. Beside this paroxysm the other outburst had been almost refined.
The official who had been about to speak looked at the fellow curiously, and when, a moment later, the latter stretched out his hand for the Pass, he held up a prohibitive palm.
As the storm died down—
"Good," said Berry. "The gentleman doesn't want to. The date is December the fifteenth, 1891." He sighed profoundly. Then: "You have a gendarme here," he said musingly, "called Jean Laffargue."
The chief of the police stared.
"Yes, Monsieur. He is there, by the door."
Berry nodded.
"He has a twin brother, hasn't he?"