"Somebody worth while. Now I want to know particularly if anything
happened."

Martin nodded in full understanding. "Come along to the office about ten
to-morrow morning, and I'll tell you if anything's been fired in from
the _gendarmeries_ or the hospitals. What did you say the man's name
was?"

Dean shook his head.

"Imitaciong oyster?" commented Martin cheerfully. "Very well, see you
to-morrow. Meanwhile, be good. Flee the giddy lure. Go home to your
little bed and sleep sweet." There was seriousness under his
good-natured banter. "Come along and I'll see you as far as the
bullyvards."

Arthur Dean went with him, but did not return to the Grand Hotel. He
found a small hotel for the night, and next morning at ten o'clock he
was at the office of the _Europe Chronicle_, an important daily paper
published simultaneously in Paris, Frankfort, and Florence.

Martin came out from the news room into the adjoining ante-room with a
slip of "flimsy" in his hand.

"Was your man hefty with the shillelagh?" he asked.

"He carried a big, gold-mounted stick."

"Then here's your bird." He read out from the slip of paper: "Last
night, shortly after twelve, a certain Gaspard P---- was brought to the