Grace seemed scarcely to appreciate the humor of the situation. "I think it's a shame," she said, "Poor Richard. He'll never forgive me. I really think I ought to tell him."
Monsieur Lefevre shook his head. "If you do that, my dear child, everything will be spoiled. He will insist upon your dropping the case at once, and that would certainly not be fair to me."
"But, Monsieur, after all, you really do not need me, with all the clever men you have upon your staff."
"Who knows? Perhaps you may succeed, where they will fail. I have great faith in the intuition of a woman. And already you have advanced the case further in forty-eight hours than my men have done in ten days. It was a chance, I will admit, that these rascals should have chosen you to deliver their demands to Monsieur Stapleton. I confess I do not understand their reasons for doing so. They must have known that besides telling your story to him, you would also tell it to me. It may have been sheer bravado on their part—it is a characteristic, I have noted, in many criminals. They seem to glory in defying the police. These fellows, no doubt, think that they have matters so arranged that capture is impossible. I think we shall give them a little surprise."
He turned to the door, and held it open, allowing Grace to pass into the hall. "Good night, my child," he called out to her, as she began to ascend the stairs. "I think I will smoke one more cigar."
As for Grace, she lay awake a long time, thinking of Richard, of their home in the country, of the happy hours they had spent there—before this unexpected interruption to their honeymoon. It seemed very queer to her, to be lying there, alone. She had not gotten used to it. And somewhere, in this big city, Richard was also sleeping—and she not with him! The excitement of the affair was beginning to die out. The meeting with Richard on the boat, which she had planned when she set out from home, had not materialized. She had postponed this meeting, in her thoughts, until his arrival in Paris, and now—he had come, and still she had not been able so much as to touch his hand. She finally went to sleep, devoutly praying that tomorrow, and the capture of the kidnappers, would mark the end of their needless and cruel separation.
CHAPTER IX
PROMPTLY at eight o'clock the next evening Mr. John Stapleton left his house in the Avenue Kleber, in a big French touring car, with François at the wheel.