"Listen, Alexandre, and profit by my words. Remember this: when a person is choosing initials for his address at a poste restante he doesn't pick them at random, but always in such a way that the letters convey a meaning to the person corresponding with him, a meaning which will enable that other person easily to remember the address."
"And in this case?"
"In this case, Mazeroux, a man like myself, who knows Neuilly and the neighbourhood of the Bois, is at once struck by those three letters, 'B.R.W.,' and especially by the 'W.', a foreign letter, an English letter. So that in my mind's eye, instantly, as in a flash, I saw the three letters in their logical place as initials at the head of the words for which they stand. I saw the 'B' of 'boulevard,' and the 'R' and the English 'W' of Richard-Wallace. And so I came to the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, And that, my dear sir, explains the milk in the cocoanut."
Mazeroux seemed a little doubtful.
"And what do you think, Chief?"
"I think nothing. I am looking about. I am building up a theory on the first basis that offers a probable theory. And I say to myself … I say to myself … I say to myself, Mazeroux, that this is a devilish mysterious little hole and that this house—Hush! Listen—"
He pushed Mazeroux into a dark corner. They had heard a noise, the slamming of a door.
Footsteps crossed the courtyard in front of the house. The lock of the outer gate grated. Some one appeared, and the light of a street lamp fell full on his face.
"Dash it all," muttered Mazeroux, "it's he!"
"I believe you're right."