"One block away would be better, Monsieur," urged the chauffeur.
"Make it two," Dave insisted crisply.
Stepping out on the running board, Dave leaned well forward, thus making it possible to close the door of his car as it slowed down. Then, as Dave stepped to the sidewalk, the taxicab moved forward more rapidly.
Searching in an inner pocket, Emil Gortchky, down the street on the other side, did not look up, and apparently did not observe the maneuver on the part of Dave's chauffeur. Dave slipped quickly into a darkened doorway, from which he could watch the international spy with little danger of being observed.
Taking out a little packet of papers, and moving toward a street lamp, Gortchky selected one of the papers, thrusting the rest back into his pocket. As he did so, one white bit fluttered to the sidewalk.
Reading under the street lamp the paper he had selected, Gortchky put that particular paper in another pocket. Then he turned abruptly, plunging into the depths of an alley-like street.
Sauntering slowly across the street, in order not to attract too much attention from other passers on the badly lighted Rue d'Ansin, Ensign Darrin, his gaze glued to that piece of paper, soon reached it and picked it up.
"For that scoundrel to drop this paper, of all others that he had in his pocket!" gasped Dave Darrin, as, under the street light, he took in its nature.
Then he paled, for this paper seemed to confirm absolutely the young ensign's suspicion as to the way in which the British battleship was to be destroyed.
All in a twinkling Dave's pallor vanished, for he had something else to think about.