work was effective. I'd have gone at once, but I heard suspicious sounds
in front of the hotel, and I came out at once to investigate."

"What did you find?"

"Near the cathedral I saw footprints which the falling snow had covered
but partially. No, it's not worth while to go back and investigate them.
They're under an inch of snow now."

"Why did you think Germans had made them?"

Weber opened his gloved hand and disclosed something metallic, a spike
from a German helmet.

"This," he said, "had become loosened and it fell from the cap of some
careless fellow. It could have been there only a few minutes, because
the snow had not yet covered it. I think a considerable party has got
behind the French lines under cover of the storm and has passed through
Chastel."

"But they must have gone on. Why would they remain in a ruined town like
this?"

"I see no reason for their doing so, unless to seek shelter for a while
in some buildings not wholly wrecked, just as you and Mademoiselle
Lannes' party have done."

John felt a throb of alarm.

"Has the Hôtel de l'Europe escaped their observation?" he asked.