own temporary residence, where
he made a considerable alteration in his personal appearance.

Then making straight for the quarter of the city mostly inhabited by
the respectable working classes, he made a friendly call on Pierre
Lenoir the coiner, who, as it will be remembered, the police had been
unable to trace since his encounter with Herbert Murray and the
waggoner.

A friendly call we have termed it, and so it seemed at first, for the
detective and the criminal shook hands in the most friendly manner.

"Hullo, friend Clermont," exclaimed Lenoir, "what brings you from
Paris!"

"Why, it was too hot for me there."

There was a pause.

"And you, too," continued the detective. "I have heard your name
mentioned very much of late. How did that affair happen?"

Pierre Lenoir told his friend, whom of course he did not know as a
detective, but merely as an associate with coiners and such like
people, how he had been tricked by Markby.

"But I'll have his life, though."

"Doubtless. It will be a bad day for him when he falls into your
hands."

Lenoir growled a fierce oath.

"He has escaped me for the present, but if I wait for years, I will
have my revenge. Pierre Lenoir never forgives."

Unheedful of the coiner's anger, the detective stroked his moustache,
and continued--

"But how about the prisoners up at the gaol yonder?"

"They are innocent."

"Innocent!"

"Undoubtedly."

"Then why are they in prison?"

"Because the only persons who can clear them are Markby and myself."

"Ah, I see!"

"And Markby for some reason or other won't clear them."

"Some old grudge, I suppose."

"Yes. However, they are innocent; when I tried them, they flatly
refused to have anything to do with the game."

"Well, they are in a nice fix; but how did you manage to escape after
that little affair with Markby and the peasant?'"

"Crawled into a bush as near as possible to the scene of the fight."

"Ah!"

"If I had gone half a mile away, the police would no doubt have found
me, but the thick-headed rascals never thought of looking only half a
dozen yards off. Ha, ha, ha!"

The detective smiled grimly.

"They are thick-headed rascals."

And after a pause occupied in listening to sounds in the street, he
repeated--

"And the English prisoners are entirely innocent then?"

"Entirely."

"Now listen to me, Pierre Lenoir," continued the detective, rapping the
table smartly as though to command attention. "But