staring after him. By good fortune
I had learned more in ten minutes than by the exercise of all my
ingenuity and the resources of the Service I could have learned in
ten months! _Par al barbe du prophete_ the Kismet which dogs the
footsteps of malefactors assisted me!

Recollecting the advice of Jean Sach, I set off at a brisk pace along
the street, which was dark and deserted and which passed through a
district marked red on the Paris crimes-map. Arriving at the corner,
above which projected a lamp, I paused and glanced back into the
darkness. I could see no one, but I thought I could detect the sound
of stealthy footsteps following me.

The suspicion was enough. I quickened my pace, anxious to reach the
crowded boulevard upon which this second street opened. I reached it
unmolested, but intending to throw any pursuer off the track, I dodged
and doubled repeatedly on the way to my flat and arrived there about
midnight, convinced that I had eluded pursuit--if indeed I had been
pursued.

All my arrangements were made for leaving Paris, and now I telephoned
to the assistant on duty in my office, instructing him to take certain
steps in regard to the proprietor of the cafe and the Algerian and to
find the hiding-place of the man Jean-Sach. I counted it more than
ever important that I should go to London at once.

In this belief I was confirmed at the very moment that I boarded the
Channel steamer at Boulogne: for as I stepped upon the deck I found
myself face to face with a man who was leaning upon the rail and
apparently watching the passengers coming on board. He was a man of
heavy build, dark and bearded, and his face was strangely familiar.

Turning, as I lighted a cigarette, I glanced back at him in order to
obtain a view of his profile. I knew him instantly--for now the scar
was visible. It was "Le Balafre" who had been playing cards in
Miguel's cafe on the previous night!

I have sometimes been criticised, especially by my English confreres,
for my faith in disguise. I have been told that no disguise is
impenetrable to the trained eye. I reply that there are many disguises
but few trained eyes! To my faith in disguise I owed the knowledge
that a golden scorpion was the token of some sort of gang, society, or
criminal group, and to this same faith which an English inspector of
police once assured me to be a misplaced one I owed, on boarding the
steamer, my escape from detection by this big bearded fellow who