d protection?

The case was so extraordinary and unprecedented that it could obviously be
met only (if at all) by extraordinary and unprecedented measures. Such
measures Coquenil proceeded to conceive and carry out, realizing fully
that, in so doing, he was taking his life in his hands. His first intuition
had come true, he was facing a great criminal and must either destroy or be
destroyed; it was to be a ruthless fight to a finish between Paul Coquenil
and the Baron de Heidelmann-Bruck.

And, true to his intuitions, as he had been from the start, M. Paul
resolved to seek the special and deadly arm that he needed against this
sinister enemy in the baron's immediate _entourage;_ in fact, in his own
house and home. That was the detective's task, to be received, unsuspected,
as an inmate of De Heidelmann-Bruck's great establishment on the Rue de
Varennes, the very center of the ancient nobility of Paris.

In this purpose he finally succeeded, after what wiles and pains need not
be stated, being hired at moderate wages as a stable helper, with a small
room over the carriage house, and miscellaneous duties that included much
drudgery in cleaning the baron's numerous automobiles. It may truthfully be
said that no more willing pair of arms ever rubbed and scrubbed their
aristocratic brasses.

The next thing was to gain the confidence, then the complicity of one of
the men servants in the _hotel_ itself, so that he might be given access to
the baron's private apartments at the opportune moment. In the horde of
hirelings about a great man there is always one whose ear is open to
temptation, and the baron's household was no exception to this rule.
Coquenil (known now as Jacques and looking the stable man to perfection)
found a dignified flunky in black side whiskers and white-silk stockings
who was not above accepting some hundred-franc notes in return for sure
information as to the master's absences from home and for necessary
assistance in the way of keys and other things.

Thus it came to pass that on a certain night in August, about two in the
morning, Paul Coquenil found himself alone in the baron's spacious, silent
library before a massive safe. The opening of this safe is another matter
that need not be gone into--a desperate case justifies desperate risk, and
an experienced burglar chaser naturally becomes a bit of a burglar
himself; at any rate, the safe swung open in due course, without accident
or interference, an