"Somebody worth while. Now I want to know particularly if anything happened."
Martin nodded in full understanding. "Come along to the office about ten to-morrow morning, and I'll tell you if anything's been fired in from the gendarmeries or the hospitals. What did you say the man's name was?"
Dean shook his head.
"Imitaciong oyster?" commented Martin cheerfully. "Very well, see you to-morrow. Meanwhile, be good. Flee the giddy lure. Go home to your little bed and sleep sweet." There was seriousness under his good-natured banter. "Come along and I'll see you as far as the bullyvards."
Arthur Dean went with him, but did not return to the Grand Hotel. He found a small hotel for the night, and next morning at ten o'clock he was at the office of the Europe Chronicle, an important daily paper published simultaneously in Paris, Frankfort, and Florence.
Martin came out from the news room into the adjoining ante-room with a slip of "flimsy" in his hand.
"Was your man hefty with the shillelagh?" he asked.
"He carried a big, gold-mounted stick."
"Then here's your bird." He read out from the slip of paper: "Last night, shortly after twelve, a certain Gaspard P—— was brought to the Hôpital Malesherbes suffering from a fractured skull. This morning, on recovering consciousness, he states that he was attacked without cause by a drunken Englishman, and struck over the head with a heavy stick. His state is grave."
Dean felt a warm wave of relief. He thanked the journalist cordially and was about to leave, when the telephone bell rang sharply in the adjoining news room. The sub-editor in charge took up the receiver.