"You will do nothing of the sort," he answered with pleasant insistence. "You will just be off, both of you, and get some hours of sound sleep. You may need all your energy to-morrow. Do not be afraid. I will arouse you if anything dramatic should happen."
Left to himself, Brett again interviewed the hall-porter and returned to the sitting-room, where he disposed himself for a nap on the sofa. Like all men who possess the faculty of concentrated thought, he also cultivated the power of dismissing a perplexing problem from his mind until it became necessary to consider it afresh in the light of further knowledge.
Within five minutes he was sound asleep.
At length he woke with a start. He was stiff with cold, for the fire had gone out, and the tiny gas jet he had left burning was not sufficient to warm the room. He sprang to his feet and looked at his watch. It was half-past six.
"Surely," he cried, "there must have been a message from Paris long before this!"
He ran downstairs, encountering on his way some of the hotel servants, who even thus early had commenced work, for your industrious Frenchman is no laggard in the morning. Going to the hall-porter's office he found that functionary snoring peacefully. The poor fellow was evidently tired out, and twenty telephone bells might have jangled in his ears without waking him.
So, for the third time, Brett rang up the exchange to get in touch with Paris. As he had anticipated, he quickly learnt that the Prefecture had endeavoured to get through to him about 4.30 a.m., but the operators were unable to obtain any answer.
"I can hardly blame the man," said he to himself, "for I was just as tired as he."
The intimation he received from the Prefecture was startling enough. In accordance with his instructions a number of detectives had raided the Cabaret Noir soon after three o'clock. They found the place in possession of a waiter and a couple of female servants. Gros Jean had quitted the house the previous evening, and, most astounding fact of all, with him were three Turks.
Neither the waiter nor the domestics could give any information whatever concerning the hidden room. They knew of its existence, but none of them had ever seen it, and the place was generally regarded as a sort of cellar for the reception of lumber.