“Well?”

“Monsieur, the game has flown, and Palot after him!”

“On foot or in a cab?”

“In a cab.”

“Enough.  Return to your comrades, and tell them to hold themselves ready.”

Everything was going as Lecoq wished, and he grasped the old justice’s hand, when he was struck by the alteration in his features.

“What, are you ill?” asked he, anxiously.

“No, but I am fifty-five years old, Monsieur Lecoq, and at that age there are emotions which kill one.  Look, I am trembling at the moment when I see my wishes being realized, and I feel as if a disappointment would be the death of me.  I’m afraid, yes, I’m afraid.  Ah, why can’t I dispense with following you?”

“But your presence is indispensable; without your help I can do nothing:” 

“What could I do?”

“Save Laurence, Monsieur Plantat.”

This name restored a part of his courage.

“If that is so—­” said he.  He began to walk firmly toward the street, but M. Lecoq stopped him.

“Not yet,” said the detective, “not yet; the battle now depends on the precision of our movements.  A single fault miserably upsets all my combinations, and then I shall be forced to arrest and deliver up the criminal.  We must have a ten minutes’ interview with Mademoiselle Laurence, but not much more, and it is absolutely necessary that this interview should be suddenly interrupted by Tremorel’s return.  Let’s make our calculations.  It will take the rascal half an hour to go to the Rue des Saints-Peres, where he will find nobody; as long to get back; let us throw in fifteen minutes as a margin; in all, an hour and a quarter.  There are forty minutes left us.”

M. Plantat did not reply, but his companion said that he could not stay so long on his feet after the fatigues of the day, agitated as he was, and having eaten nothing since the evening before.  He led him into a neighboring cafe, and forced him to eat a biscuit and drink a glass of wine.  Then seeing that conversation would be annoying to the unhappy old man, he took up an evening paper and soon seemed to be absorbed in the latest news from Germany.  The old justice, his head leaning on the back of his chair and his eyes wandering over the ceiling, passed in mental review the events of the past four years.  It seemed to him but yesterday that Laurence, still a child, ran up his garden-path and picked his roses and honeysuckles.  How pretty she was, and how divine were her great eyes!  Then, as it seemed, between dusk and dawn, as a rose blooms on a June night, the pretty child had become a sweet and radiant young girl.  She was timid and reserved with all but him—­was he not her old friend, the confidant of all her little griefs and her innocent hopes?  How frank and pure she was then; what a heavenly ignorance of evil!

Nine o’clock struck; M. Lecoq laid down his paper.

“Let us go,” said he.