ough the rotating doors of the
famous restaurant and turned right as she had been instructed. She
had never been in so luxurious a place before--dining rooms done in
gray or brown marble with furniture to match. Two steps lead from the
gray to the brown room and Mlle. Blondet, not noticing them in her
excitement, slipped and would have fallen had not the old wine steward
who looks like Charles Dickens, caught and steadied her.

The two men with whom she was lunching were at a table at the far
corner of the deserted room. The one who had invited her, Francois
Metenier, a well-known French engineer and industrialist, powerfully
built, with sharp eyes, dark hair, and a suave self-assured manner,
rose at her approach, smiling at her embarrassment. The other man,
considerably younger, was M. Locuty, a stocky, bushy haired man with
square jaws and heavy tortoise-shell eyeglasses. He was an engineer at
the huge Michelin Tire Works at Clermont-Ferrand where Metenier was an
important official. The industrialist introduced the girl merely as
"my friend" without mentioning her name.

With the exception of two couples having a late breakfast in the gray
marble room, which they could see from their table, the three were
alone.

"Shall we have a bottle of Bordeaux?" asked Metenier. "I ordered lunch
by 'phone but I thought I would await your presence on the wine."

"Oh, anything you order," said Locuty with an effort at casualness.

"Yes, you order the wine," said the stenographer.

"_Garcon_, a bottle of St. Julien, Chateau Leoville-Poyferre 1870."

The ghost of Charles Dickens, who had been hovering nearby, bowed and
smiled with appreciation of the guest's knowledge of a rare fine wine
and personally rushed off to the cellars for the Bordeaux.

When the early lunch was over and the brandy had been set before
them, Metenier studied his glass thoughtfully and glanced at the two
portly men who had entered the brown dining room and sat some tables
away. From the snatches of conversation the three gathered that one
was a literary critic and the other a publisher. They were discussing
a thrilling detective story just published which the critic insisted
was too fantastic.

Metenier said to Locuty:

"You will have to make two bombs. I will take you to a very important
man in our organization, a power in France. He will personally give
you the material and show you how to make them. Then I will take you
to the places where you wi