I followed my traps across the sun-baked promenade to the nearest hotel—the old-fashioned Régence, in The Place—and after a wash, and a marzagran at the café outside, I inquired my way to the Prefecture of Police, where, on presenting an open letter, which Henri Jonet, of the Sûreté, had given me a couple of years before, and which had often served as an introduction, I was received very cordially.
To the French detective-inspector I said—
"I am making an inquiry, and I want, M'sieur, to ask you to allow me to have one of your men. I am meeting an individual who may prove desperate."
"There is danger—eh? Why, of course, M'sieur, a man shall accompany you." And he shouted through the open window to one of his underlings who was seated on a bench in the inner courtyard.
I made no mention of the name of Jules Jeanjean. Had I done so the effect would, I know, have been electrical.
But when I got outside with the dark-eyed, sunburnt little man in a shabby straw hat and rather frayed suit, I exclaimed in French—
"There is a villa somewhere outside the town where some experiments in wireless telegraphy are being conducted. Do you happen to know the place?"
"Ah! M'sieur means the Villa Beni Hassan, out near the Jardin d'Essai. There are two high masts in the grounds with four long wires suspended between them."
"Who lives there?"