A man was coming to meet them—an investigating agent attached to the general commissariat department at Dieppe.
"They are asking for Monsieur Henri on the telephone," he announced.
De Loubersac rushed to the police station. Over the telephone, a War Office colleague informed him that the fugitive corporal, accompanied by a priest, had during the last hour arrived at a garage in Rouen.
Meanwhile Juve had received a cypher telegram at the police station, confirming the news, with the addition that, after replenishing the motor with petrol, they had set off again at once—they had received a telegram.
Juve and de Loubersac returned to the quay.
"Our beauties will not be so long now," said he.
With twilight the tempest had died down, night was falling fast. The waters in the docks reflected the light from the quay lamps on their shining, heaving, surface.
Now, for some time, Henri de Loubersac had been longing to ask Juve a question, longing yet fearing to voice it—a question relating to his personal affairs. Had not Juve, as Vagualame, clearly insinuated that Wilhelmine de Naarboveck must have been the mistress of Captain Brocq? Had not de Loubersac protested vehemently against such an odious calumny? But now that he knew this statement was Juve's, he was in a state of torment—his love was bleeding with the torture of it!
At last he summoned up courage to put the question to Juve.
Juve frowned, looked embarrassed. He had foreseen the question. He did not believe that Wilhelmine de Naarboveck had been Captain Brocq's mistress; but he knew there was an undecipherable mystery in this girl's life, and he had an intuition that the discovery of this secret would probably throw light on certain points which, as far as he was concerned, had remained obscure. Was this fair-haired girl really the baron's daughter? Since he had learned that Wilhelmine visited Lady Beltham's tomb regularly—this notorious Lady Beltham, mistress of Fantômas—he had been saying to himself: