"Well?" the spy asked with a blank sidelong look.
"Whereas you are leaving Paris tonight."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because you value your thick hide too highly to remain, my dear captain." Having gained the corner of the boulevard St. Denis, Lanyard pulled up. "One moment, by your leave. You see yonder the entrance to the Metro—don't you? And here, a dozen feet away, a perfectly able-bodied sergent de ville? Let this fateful conjunction impress you properly: for five minutes after you have descended to the Métro—or as soon as the noise of a train advises me you've had one chance to get away—I shall mention casually to the sergo—that I have seen Captain Ek—"
"Hush!" the German protested in a hiss of fright.
"But certainly: I've no desire to embarrass you: publicity must be terribly distasteful to one of your sensitive and retiring disposition…. But I trust you understand me? On the one hand, there's the Métro; on the other, there's the flic; while here, you must admit, am I, as large as life and very much on the job! … And inasmuch as I shall certainly mention my suspicions to the minion of the law—as aforesaid—I'd advise you to be well out of Paris before dawn!"
There was murder in the eyes of the spy as he lingered, truculently glowering at the smiling adventurer; and for an instant Lanyard was well-persuaded he had gone too far, that even there, even on that busy junction of two crowded thoroughfares, Ekstrom would let his temper get the better of his judgment and risk everything in an attempt upon the life of his despoiler.
But he was mistaken.
With a surly shrug the spy swung about and marched straight to the kiosk of the underground railway, into which, without one backward glance, he disappeared.
Two minutes later the earth beneath Lanyard's feet quaked with the crash and rumble of a north-bound train.