The young Frenchman made a gesture of sympathetic negation. There had been no reason to look at the number, even if he could have read it from a window on the second story.
"Thanks," said Larssen, but the information seemed at first sight valueless. A man takes an unknown cab from an unknown house in an unknown suburb to an unknown terminus, when he buys a ticket for an unknown destination. Sheer waste of energy to hunt for a needle in that haystack!
Yet his bulldog mind would not let go of the problem. Presently he had found a new avenue of approach to it. If Rivière had travelled away from Paris on the evening of the 15th, probably he stayed that night or the next day at some hotel. There he would have to fill in his name, etc., in the hotel register according to the strict requirements of the French law.
Advertise in the papers for one John Rivière from Paris, age thirty-seven, staying at a hotel in the provinces on the 15th or 16th. Offer a reward for information. The average Frenchman is very keen on money; without a doubt he would answer the advertisement if he knew anything of John Rivière. Advertise in Le Petit Journal, Le Petit Parisien and a few other dailies which cover France from end to end, as no English or American journals do in their respective countries.
That was the right solution!
Larssen did not pay the cheque for £20,000 into his bank. He was after big game, and a mere £20,000 was a jack-rabbit. It would be safer, he felt, to let it lie amongst his secret papers.
When Sylvester, his private secretary, arrived by the afternoon train from London, Lars Larssen placed him in touch with only so much of the situation as he considered desirable. This was little. Sylvester was to stay in Paris while the shipowner went on to Monte Carlo. If the various advertisements brought a reply, Sylvester was to hunt out John Rivière in whatever part of France he might be, and then communicate with Lars Larssen for further orders.
The secretary was a quiet, self-contained, silent man of thirty or thirty-one. A heavy dark moustache curtained expression from his lips. Not only could he carry out orders to the letter, but he was to be trusted to keep his head in any unforeseen emergency and act on his own responsibility in a sound, common-sense way. But Lars Larssen trusted no man beyond the essentials of any situation. His was the brain to plan and direct. He preferred obedient tools to brilliant, independent helpers.
At the train-side, Larssen gave a final direction to his subordinate: "Keep me in touch with every move."
Back at his hotel, Sylvester occupied himself with the development of some films he had taken on the Channel passage. In his hours of leisure he was a devoted amateur photographer. At the present time there was nothing to be done but wait the possible answer to the advertisement.