He opened the Annuaire Officiel de l'Armee Francaise, just as I might have done myself, and said:
“There are six regiments. One is at Blidah, another at Tlemcen, another at Constantine, another at Tunis, another at Algiers, and another at Mascara.”
“To which regiment, then, did Captain Vauvenarde belong?” I inquired.
He referred to one of the dossiers that the orderlies had brought him.
“The 3rd, Monsieur.”
“I should get information, then, from Tlemcen?”
“Evidently, Monsieur.”
I thanked him and withdrew, to his obvious relief. Seekers after knowledge are unpopular even in organisations so far removed from the Circumlocution Office as the French Ministere de la Guerre. However, he had put me on the trail of my man.
During my homeward drive through the rain I reflected. I might, of course, write to the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3rd Regiment at Tlemcen, and wait for his reply. But even if he answered by return of post, I should have to remain in Paris for nearly a week.
“That,” said I, wiping from my face half a teacupful of liquid mud which had squirted in through the cab window—“that I'll never do. I'll proceed at once to Algiers. If I can get no news of him there, I'll go to Tlemcen myself. In all probability I shall learn that he is residing here in Paris, a stone's throw from the Madeleine.”