He spoke so earnestly and straightforwardly that Coquenil began to think Groener had really been deceived by the Matthieu disguise.  After all, why not?  Tignol had been deceived by it.

“How will you find her?”

“I’ll tell you as we drive along.  We’ll take a cab and—­you won’t leave me, M. Matthieu?” he said anxiously.

Coquenil tried to soften the grimness of his smile.  “No, M. Groener, I won’t leave you.”

“Good!  Now then!” He threw down some money for the drinks, then he hailed a passing carriage.

“Rue Tronchet, near the Place de la Madeleine,” he directed, and as they rolled away, he added:  “Stop at the nearest telegraph office.”

The adventure was taking a new turn.  Groener, evidently, had some definite plan which he hoped to carry out.  Coquenil felt for cigarettes in his coat pocket and his hand touched the friendly barrel of a revolver.  Then he glanced back and saw the big automobile, which had been waiting for hours, trailing discreetly behind with Tignol (no longer a priest) and two sturdy fellows, making four men with the chauffeur, all ready to rush up for attack or defense at the lift of his hand.  There must be some miraculous interposition if this man beside him, this baby-faced wood carver, was to get away now as he did that night on the Champs Elysees.

“You’ll be paying for that left-handed punch, old boy, before very long,” said Coquenil to himself.

“Now,” resumed Groener, as the cab turned into a quiet street out of the noisy traffic of the Rue de Rivoli, “I’ll tell you how I expect to find Alice.  I’m going to find her through the sister of Father Anselm.”

“The sister of Father Anselm!” exclaimed the other.

“Certainly.  Priests have sisters, didn’t you know that?  Ha, ha!  She’s a hairdresser on the Rue Tronchet, kind-hearted woman with children of her own.  She comes to see the Bonnetons and is fond of Alice.  Well, she’ll know where the girl has gone, and I propose to make her tell me.”

“To make her?”

“Oh, she’ll want to tell me when she understands what this means to her brother.  Hello!  Here’s the telegraph office!  Just a minute.”

He sprang lightly from the cab and hurried across the sidewalk.  At the same moment Coquenil lifted his hand and brought it down quickly, twice, in the direction of the doorway through which Groener had passed.  And a moment later Tignol was in the telegraph office writing a dispatch beside the wood carver.

“I’ve telegraphed the Paris agent of a big furniture dealer in Rouen,” explained the latter as they drove on, “canceling an appointment for to-morrow.  He was coming on especially, but I can’t see him—­I can’t do any business until I’ve found Alice.  She’s a sweet girl, in spite of everything, and I’m very fond of her.”  There was a quiver of emotion in his voice.

“Are you going to the hairdresser’s now?” asked Matthieu.