‘No, on my honour. We shall have found him by accident.’
‘Come this way, then, monsieur.’
She led them down the stairs and out again into the dingy street. Passing along it like a furtive shadow she turned twice, then halted at the corner of a third street.
‘Down there, monsieur,’ she pointed. ‘You see that café with the coloured glass windows? He’ll be in there,’ and without waiting for an acknowledgment she slipped away, vanishing silently into the gloom.
The two men pushed open the café door and entered a fairly large room dotted with small marble tables, with a bar in one corner and a dancing stage at the back. Seating themselves unostentatiously at a table near the door they called for drinks.
There were some fifteen or twenty men and a few women in the place, some reading the papers, some playing dominoes, but most lounging in groups and talking. As La Touche’s keen eye ran over the faces, he soon spotted his man.
‘Is that he, Charcot?’ he asked, pointing to a small, unhealthy looking fellow, with a short, untidy, white beard and moustache.
The porter looked cautiously. Then he assented eagerly.
‘It’s the man, monsieur, I believe. The beard changes him a bit, but I’m nearly sure it’s he.’
The suspect was one of those on the outskirts of a group, to whom a stout, fussy man with a large nose was holding forth on some socialistic subject. La Touche crossed over and touched the white-haired man on the arm.