“Well, so far we’ve been successful. I admire your ingenuity and your pluck.”
The man laughed and thanked him.
“I have done what I was told to do,” he replied simply. “Monsieur is, I understand, in a bit of a scrape, and it is for all of us to assist each other—is it not?”
“Of course. But who told you to do all this?” Hugh inquired, standing in the dark road beside the car. The pair could not see each other’s faces, though the big head-lamps glared far ahead over the white road.
“Well—a friend of yours, m’sieur.”
“What is his name?”
“Pardon, I am not allowed to say.”
“But all this is so very strange—so utterly mysterious!” cried Hugh. “I have not committed any crime, and yet I am hunted by the police! They are anxious to arrest me for an offence of which I am entirely innocent.”
“I know that, m’sieur,” was the fellow’s reply. “At the dogana, however, we had a narrow escape. The man who looked at you was Morain, the chief inspector of the Surete of the Alpes-Maritimes, and he was at the outpost especially to stop you!”
“Again I admire your perfect nonchalance and ingenuity,” Hugh said. “I owe my liberty entirely to you.”