"Ullo, ullo! C'est ici le Chronicle," said the sub-editor, and after listening for a moment signed imperatively to Martin to come in and shut the door.
Presently Martin came out from the news room bustling with energy and took Dean by the arm. "You specified two apaches, didn't you?" he asked, and hurried on without waiting for an answer. "One was probably the injured innocence now at the Malesherbes and cursing those sacrés Angliches, but the other lies low and says nuffink. That's the one that interests me. Come along in my taxi and watch me chase a story."
Stopping only to borrow fifty francs for expenses from the cashier's wicket, Martin hurried his friend into a taximeter cab and gave the brief direction: "Pont de Neuilly."
Three-quarters of an hour later they had reached the bridge at the end of the long avenue of the suburb of Neuilly and had dismissed the cab.
"Now for our imitaciong Sherlock Holmes," said Martin. "The 'phone message was that a man had found a fur coat and a gold-mounted stick under some bushes by the left bank of the Seine four hundred metres down stream. He was apparently some sort of workman, and explained that he had no wish to be mixed up with the police. On the other hand, he felt he had to do his duty by the civilization that provides him with a blue blouse, bread, and bock, so he 'phoned the news to us.... Wish everyone was as sensible," he added, viewing the matter from a professional standpoint.
Three hundred yards down, they began to look very carefully amongst the bushes that line the water's edge. It was not long before they came to the object of their search. Under an alder-bush they found it—a heavy fur-lined coat sodden with the river water, and a gold-mounted stick.
The maker's name had been cut out of the overcoat; its pockets were empty.
Martin held it up. "Did this belong to your man?" he asked, as though sure of the answer.
"No," answered Dean decisively.
The journalist whisked around in complete surprise and looked at him keenly. "Sure?"