over to England
they had returned to Paris.... The traitors must have separated: this
would lessen their chances of being recognised.... They must have
arrested Vinson as he was leaving the train.... Bobinette, become
unrecognisable when her cassock was hidden, must have escaped!"

De Loubersac ran back. He hunted the station all over. He jumped into
a taxi and drove up and down all the adjoining streets; but the chase
was a useless one! Bobinette was invisible--Bobinette had seized her
opportunity. She had disappeared!

XXIV

AN APPETISER AT ROBERT'S BAR

"Have another whisky, old sport?"

"Not I! We have taken too much on board as it is."

"You must! You must! Seen through the gold of old Scotch, life seems
more beautiful, and the barmaids more fetching."

Perched on the high stools which allowed them to lean on the rail of
the bar the two topers solemnly clinked glasses.

The younger of the two, a lean, dark fellow, emptied his glass at one
go, but his companion, a big fair man about thirty-five, clean shaven,
and slightly bald, handled his glass so awkwardly that the contents
escaped on to the floor.

The big fair man called for fresh drinks. Their glasses were refilled
so quickly that the dark young man failed to notice it: he drank on
and on automatically, as though wound up to do so, but his companion
barely wetted his lips with the intoxicating liquor.

It was six o'clock and a dismal December evening; but there was an
animated cosmopolitan crowd in Robert's bar.

Robert's of London is the equivalent of Maxim's of Paris. The great
place for luxurious entertainments, it opens its doors at twilight,
and does not close them till the small hours are well advanced. When
evening falls, the scene grows animated: business men and women of
pleasure crowd the rooms. Gradually the crowd assumes a cosmopolitan
character. A band of Hungarian gipsies plays inspiriting and seductive
music. The crush increases, the noise grows louder, and amidst this
babel of voices, the racket, the din, the barmaids ply their trade
with calm determination: they flirt with their customers and egg them
on to drink glass after glass of wine and spirits for the good of the
house, in an atmosphere thick with tobacco smoke.

Every ten minutes or so, a newspaper boy slips in with the latest
evening editions, to be chased out by one of the managers of mixed
nationality who, for the most part, talk in a strangely mixed tongue,
p