r door announced the
arrival of a visitor. It was May. "I wish to speak to the landlady," he
said.

"What landlady?" replied the lad.

"The person who received me when I came here six weeks ago--"

"Oh, I understand," interrupted Fritz; "it's Madame Milner you want to
see; but you have come too late; she sold the house about a month ago,
and has gone back to Alsace."

May stamped his foot and uttered a terrible oath. "I have come to claim
something from her," he insisted.

"Do you want me to call her successor?"

Concealed behind the glass door, Lecoq could not help admiring Fritz,
who was uttering these glaring falsehoods with that air of perfect
candor which gives the Germans such a vast advantage over the Latin
races, who seem to be lying even when they are telling the truth.

"Her successor would order me off," exclaimed May. "I came to reclaim
the money I paid for a room I never occupied."

"Such money is never refunded."

May uttered some incoherent threat, in which such words as "downright
robbery" and "justice" could be distinguished, and then abruptly walked
back into the street, slamming the door behind him.

"Well! did I answer properly?" asked Fritz triumphantly as Lecoq emerged
from his hiding-place.

"Yes, perfectly," replied the detective. And then pushing aside the boy,
who was standing in his way, he dashed after May.

A vague fear almost suffocated him. It had struck him that the fugitive
had not been either surprised or deeply affected by the news he
had heard. He had come to the hotel depending upon Madame Milner's
assistance, and the news of this woman's departure would naturally have
alarmed him, for was she not the mysterious accomplice's confidential
friend? Had May, then, guessed the trick that had been played upon him?
And if so, how?

Lecoq's good sense told him plainly that the fugitive must have been
put on his guard, and on rejoining Father Absinthe, he immediately
exclaimed: "May spoke to some one on his way to the hotel."

"Why, how could you know that?" exclaimed the worthy man, greatly
astonished.

"Ah! I was sure of it! Who did he speak to?"

"To a very pretty woman, upon my word!--fair and plump as a partridge!"

"Ah! fate is against us!" exclaimed Lecoq with an oath. "I run on in
advance to Madame Milner's house, so that May shan't see her. I invent
an excuse to send her out of the hotel, and yet they meet each other."

Father Absinthe gave a despairing gesture