ll read it with amusement.
They do not know that Marthe Gobin wrote a letter yesterday night.
Come, let us go!"

"Where to?" asked Ricardo.

"Where to?" exclaimed Hanaud. "Why, of course, to Geneva."

CHAPTER XII

THE ALUMINIUM FLASK

"I have telephoned to Lemerre, the Chef de la Surete at Geneva," said
Hanaud, as the car sped out of Aix along the road to Annecy. "He will
have the house watched. We shall be in time. They will do nothing until
dark."

But though he spoke confidently there was a note of anxiety in his
voice, and he sat forward in the car, as though he were already
straining his eyes to see Geneva.

Ricardo was a trifle disappointed. They were on the great journey to
Geneva. They were going to arrest Mlle. Celie and her accomplices. And
Hanaud had not come disguised. Hanaud, in Ricardo's eyes, was hardly
living up to the dramatic expedition on which they had set out. It
seemed to him that there was something incorrect in the great detective
coming out on the chase without a false beard.

"But, my dear friend, why shouldn't I?" pleaded Hanaud. "We are going
to dine together at the Restaurant du Nord, over the lake, until it
grows dark. It is not pleasant to eat one's soup in a false beard. Have
you tried it? Besides, everybody stares so, seeing perfectly well that
it is false. Now, I do not want tonight that people should know me for
a detective; so I do not go disguised."

"Humorist!" said Mr. Ricardo.

"There! you have found me out!" cried Hanaud, in mock alarm. "Besides,
I told you this morning that that is precisely what I am."

Beyond Annecy, they came to the bridge over the ravine. At the far end
of it, the car stopped. A question, a hurried glance into the body of
the car, and the officers of the Customs stood aside.

"You see how perfunctory it is," said Hanaud and with a jerk the car
moved on. The jerk threw Hanaud against Mr. Ricardo. Something hard in
the detective's pocket knocked against his companion.

"You have got them?" he whispered.

"What?"

"The handcuffs."

Another disappointment awaited Ricardo. A detective without a false
beard was bad enough, but that was nothing to a detective without
handcuffs. The paraphernalia of justice were sadly lacking. However,
Hanaud consoled Mr. Ricardo by showing him the hard thing; it was
almost as thrilling as the handcuffs, for it was a loaded revolver.

"There will be danger, then?" said Ricardo, with a tremor of
excite