n my own part and that of my department
our hearty thanks for what you have done. I can assure you, sir, I quite
understand your position, and I greatly appreciate your kindness."

M. Max also had risen. He politely repeated his regrets, and with mutual
compliments the two men parted.

Willis had once spent a holiday in Paris, and he was slightly acquainted
with the city. He strolled on through the busy streets, brilliant in
the pale autumn sunlight, until he reached the Grands Boulevards. There
entering a cafe, he sat down, called for a bock, and settled himself to
consider his next step.

The position created by M. Max's action was disconcerting. Willis felt
himself stranded, literally a stranger in a strange land, sent to carry
out an investigation among a people whose language he could not even
speak! He saw at once that his task was impossible. He must have local
help or he could proceed no further.

He thought of his own department. The Excise had failed him. What about
the Surete?

But a very little thought convinced him that he was even less likely
to obtain help from this quarter. He could only base an appeal on the
possibility of a future charge of conspiracy to murder, and he realized
that the evidence for that was too slight to put forward seriously.

What was to be done? So far as he could see, but one thing. He must
employ a private detective. This plan would meet the language difficulty
by which he was so completely hung up.

He went to a call office and got his chief at the Yard on the long
distance wire. The latter approved his SUGGESTION, and recommended M.
Jules Laroche of the Rue du Sommerard near the Sorbonne. Half an hour
later Willis reached the house.

M. Laroche proved to be a tall, unobtrusive-looking man of some
five-and-forty, who had lived in London for some years and spoke as good
English as Willis himself. He listened quietly and without much apparent
interest to what his visitor had to tell him, then said he would be glad
to take on the job.

"We had better go to Bordeaux this evening, so as to start fresh
tomorrow," Willis suggested.

"Two o'clock at the d'Orsay station," the other returned. "We have just
time. We can settle our plans in the train."

They reached the St Jean station at Bordeaux at 10.35 that night,
and drove to the Hotel d'Espagne. They had decided that they could
do nothing until the following evening, when they would go out to the
clearing and see what a