“To-day is Saturday,” Yvette remarked. “We really have not much time to spare between now and the twenty-second. I think I will make a few inquiries to-night. Jules had better go with me.”
Dick’s heart sank. He knew what Yvette’s “inquiries” meant—hours, perhaps days, spent in the lowest quarters of Paris, surrounded by such horrible riff-raff that if her purpose were even suspected her life would be worth hardly a moment’s purchase.
But he knew it was useless to remonstrate. Yvette had a perfect genius for “make-up,” and what was far more important, a perfect knowledge of the strange argot which served the underworld of Paris. Jules was almost as clever as Yvette. But in this particular, of course, Dick was far behind. He could not hope to sustain his part in surroundings where a single wrong word would mean instant suspicion, and probably a swift and violent death for all three.
“I wish I could go with you, Yvette,” he said wistfully, “but, alas! I know it is quite impossible.”
Yvette had many friends in the lower quarters of the Montmartre. The proprietors of many of the low buvettes of the slums—places where one could get absinthe and drugs—were secretly in her pay, and so far as they were concerned she had no fears; the traffickers trusted her because they knew their secrets were safe. And by an ingenious code system which depended upon a mere vocal inflexion of certain common words she could reveal her identity, no matter what her disguise, to those who were in her secret.
Darkness had fallen upon the city when two appalling specimens of the worst vagabondage of Paris—a man and a woman—crept silently through the market quarter towards one of Paris’s vilest haunts of villainy. They were such woebegone specimens of humanity as might have served for figures in some new “Inferno.” Bedraggled and unkempt, their hands and faces besmirched with grime, their clothes hanging in tatters, it would have been impossible for even the keenest eye to have detected the smart French girl and her usually debonair brother. So far as appearances went they were safe enough. The risk would come when they began to talk, and especially when they began to ask questions. Here a slip of the tongue might betray them. But the risk had to be taken.
The Préfet himself, quite as anxious as Dick for the safety of Yvette and Jules, had taken precautions to protect them as far as possible. Actual escort, of course, was out of the question. Both Yvette and Jules carried revolvers, but in addition Jules had concealed in the ample pockets of his villainous clothing, a tiny but delicate wireless telegraph apparatus, powerful enough upon a dry battery to send out a wireless wave which would carry a thousand yards or so.
This dainty little bit of electrical work was the invention of Dick Manton. Hardly larger than an old-fashioned watch it was operated by a hundred-volt battery which fitted into a specially made pocket, and the tiny transmitting key could be operated with one finger without arousing the slightest suspicion. Gregoire’s agents were dotted thickly around the unsavoury neighbourhood, each in touch, by means of the wireless, with every movement Yvette and Jules might make. Dick himself was not far away. How amply these precautions were justified the events of the night were to show.
For hour after hour Yvette and Jules slunk from one haunt of vice to another, always keenly on the alert, frequently helped by one or another of Yvette’s disreputable friends, but yet unable to pick up the slightest vestige of the trail of which they were in such active search.
At length their patient vigil culminated.