"What?" cried his lordship. "Did that shooting affair convey anything more to you than what I have said?"
"Of course. What need was there for such a trick? In the first place it is very simple. You or I could do it after ten minutes' practice with an expanding charge and a show pistol. Secondly, she admitted that the Cabaret Noir is a centre of operations for the gang in whom we are interested. By the way, I should like to know her name."
He directed the driver to wait for them at a street corner some little distance further on. Close to where they stood an itinerant vendor was selling some mechanical toys.
Brett bought one. The price was twenty sous. He gave the man a two-franc piece and refused the change.
"Do you know," he said, "who is the proprietor of the Cabaret Noir?"
"Certainly, monsieur," replied the gutter-merchant; "it is Gros Jean. His name is Beaucaire."
"Ah! And the lady who lives there, a dark pretty woman with white skin, who is she?"
"That is his daughter," said the man. "She is known as La Belle Chasseuse."
"Why such a name?"