"Faith, what she said was 'Take me to the Bois,' and the cab turned by the Saints-Pères bridge. Probably it went by the Tuileries quay after."
"The number? The number of this taxi?"
"Why, we will ask the policeman at the kiosque: he has certainly entered it, as usual."
Stamping with impatience inside a landaulet whose hood he had had lowered that he might more easily see around him, Brocq had rushed off in pursuit of Bobinette's taxi, 249—B.Z.
Shaking from head to foot, Brocq held in a tight grip his leather portfolio, which contained all the documents he wished to lay before the Ministry of War, less, alas! the mislaid plan of the eastern forts. He scrutinised the Place de la Concorde, the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. He was asking himself why Bobinette, after telling him she must hurry away, had driven to the Bois as if she were one of the leisured crowd? This troubled the lover in him as well as the soldier. Why had he rushed after his mistress in this fashion? What definite reason had he? After all, it was exceedingly improbable, surely, that she had carried away this document without noticing it, for it was composed of three or four large sheets of paper!... In that case, she must have lost it before getting into the taxi. As to supposing for an instant that she had taken it away intentionally—Brocq would not suppose it. Why should he? There was nothing to lead him to think.
But, all the same!...
All the same, the captain had a presentiment, a conviction, an instinctive certainty that, at all costs he must overtake Bobinette—he absolutely must.
Why?
Brocq could not have said why. He did not reason about it. He felt: a feeling as indefinable as it was irresistible drove him to pursue, to continue the chase at top speed.
Again and again he had shouted to the astonished chauffeur, who was driving his taxi as fast as the crowded street permitted: "Get on! In the devil's name, go faster—faster!"