The chauffeur, a young alert fellow, understood there was a chase in question, and amused at the idea of pursuing a comrade through the crowded streets of Paris, he set off. He adroitly cut through a file of carriages and caught up taxi 4227 G.H. He then proceeded to follow closely in its track.
Fandor, keen as a bloodhound on the scent, kept watch over their progress to an unknown destination.
They rolled along the avenue de l'Opéra: they cut across the rue de Rivoli. Then, when they were going at a good pace through the place du Carrousel, Fandor felt much moved by memories of past times, those days of great and wonderful adventures, when he would follow this very route to keep some exciting appointment with his good friend, Juve. How frequent those appointments used to be, when the famous detective was alive and so actively at work—the work of unearthing criminals—those pests of society! Off Fandor used to set when the longed for summons came, and would meet Juve in his little flat on the left side of the Seine. Ah, those were times, indeed!
When a lad, Fandor had been practically adopted by the famous detective. Young Jérôme Fandor had served a kind of apprenticeship with Juve, and this had brought him into close touch with the ups and downs of a number of crime dramas: he and Juve together had even been the voluntary, or involuntary, heroes of some of them! Then the tragic disappearance of Juve had occurred, when Fandor had escaped death by a kind of miracle!
After that dreadful date, our journalist had found himself alone, isolated, with not a soul to whom he cared to confide his perplexities, his anxieties, his hopes! Fandor shuddered at the thought of this.
The taxi had just crossed the bridge des Sainte Pères, had followed the quay for a few minutes, then rounding the Fine Arts School they entered the old and narrow rue Bonaparte....
What was this? Of course, it could only be a coincidence ... but still ... rue Bonaparte—why that only brought the memory of Juve more vividly to mind! For Juve had lived in this street; and now, a few yards further on, they would pass before the modest dwelling where, for years, the detective had made his home, keeping jealously hidden, from all and sundry, this asylum, this secret retreat.
Ah, what happy hours, what jolly times, what tragic moments, too, had Fandor not passed in that little flat on the fourth floor! How they had chatted away in the detective's comfortable study! Then Fandor, full of spirit, would come and go from room to room, unable to sit still, all fire and activity; and Juve would remain in one place, calm, full of thought, sometimes sunk in a reverie, often silent for hours at a time, his eyes obstinately fixed on the ceiling, smoking methodically, mechanically even, his eternal cigarette. Oh, those good, good days gone for ever!
After the disastrous disappearance of Juve, Fandor had not gone near the rue Bonaparte for six months. It was all too painful, to find again the familiar rooms and no Juve! It was too painful.
However, one fine day, he determined to go and see what had happened to his friend's old home.... Alas, in Paris, the lapse of half a year suffices to alter the most familiar scene! In rue Bonaparte, the former house porters had left; their place had been taken by a stout, sulky woman who gave evasive replies to Fandor's questions. He extracted from her the information that the tenant of the fourth floor flat had died, that his furniture had been cleared out very soon after his death, and the flat had been let to an insurance inspector....