. "Ah! if I had known!" he
murmured; "but you did not tell me to prevent May from speaking to the
passers-by."

"Never mind, my old friend," said Lecoq, consolingly; "it couldn't have
been helped."

While this conversation was going on, the fugitive had reached the
Faubourg Montmartre, and his pursuers were obliged to hasten forward and
get closer to their man, so that they might not lose him in the crowd.

"Now," resumed Lecoq when they had overtaken him, "give me the
particulars. Where did they meet?"

"In the Rue Saint-Quentin."

"Which saw the other first?"

"May."

"What did the woman say? Did you hear any cry of surprise?"

"I heard nothing, for I was quite fifty yards off; but by the woman's
manner I could see she was stupefied."

Ah! if Lecoq could have witnessed the scene, what valuable deductions he
might have drawn from it. "Did they talk for a long time?" he asked.

"For less than a quarter of an hour."

"Do you know whether Madame Milner gave May money or not?"

"I can't say. They gesticulated like mad--so violently, indeed, that I
thought they were quarreling."

"They knew they were being watched, and were endeavoring to divert
suspicion."

"If they would only arrest this woman and question her," suggested
Father Absinthe.

"What good would it do? Hasn't M. Segmuller examined and cross-examined
her a dozen times without drawing anything from her! Ah! she's a cunning
one. She would declare that May met her and insisted that she should
refund the ten francs he paid her for his room. We must do our best,
however. If the accomplice has not been warned already, he will soon
be told; so we must try to keep the two men apart. What ruse they will
employ, I can't divine. But I know that it will be nothing hackneyed."

Lecoq's presumptions made Father Absinthe nervous. "The surest way,
perhaps," ventured the latter, "would be to lock him up again!"

"No!" replied the young detective. "I want his secret, and I'll have it.
What will be said of us if we two allow this man to escape us? He can't
be visible and invisible by turns, like the devil. We'll see what he is
going to do now that he's got some money and a plan--for he has both at
the present moment. I would stake my right hand upon it."

At that same instant, as if May intended to convince Lecoq of the truth
of his suspicion, he entered a tobacconist's shop and emerged an instant
afterward with a cigar in his mouth.

XXI

So the l