"No," said Father Brown, quite simply, but suddenly standing up,
"for a very short journey. For one of the shortest, in fact.
But we may still be in time to catch him if we go there in a motor-cab."

Nothing more could be got out of him until the cab swept
round the corner by the Hotel Saint Louis, where they got out,
and he led the party up a side lane already in deep shadow with
the growing dusk. Once, when the Duke impatiently asked whether
Hirsch was guilty of treason or not, he answered rather absently:
"No; only of ambition--like Caesar." Then he somewhat inconsequently added:
"He lives a very lonely life; he has had to do everything for himself."

"Well, if he's ambitious, he ought to be satisfied now,"
said Flambeau rather bitterly. "All Paris will cheer him
now our cursed Colonel has turned tail."

"Don't talk so loud," said Father Brown, lowering his voice,
"your cursed Colonel is just in front."

The other two started and shrank farther back into the shadow
of the wall, for the sturdy figure of their runaway principal
could indeed be seen shuffling along in the twilight in front,
a bag in each hand. He looked much the same as when they first saw him,
except that he had changed his picturesque mountaineering knickers
for a conventional pair of trousers. It was clear he was already
escaping from the hotel.

The lane down which they followed him was one of those that
seem to be at the back of things, and look like the wrong side