The strange thing which had happened was told in those four words, but Gerald Burton naturally went on to explain, or rather to try to explain, the extraordinary situation which had arisen, to Nancy's lawyer and friend.

Mr. Stephens did not waste any time in exclamations of surprise or pity.

Once he had grasped the main facts, his words were few and to the point.

"Tell Mrs. Dampier," he said, speaking very distinctly, "that if she has no news of her husband by Friday I will come myself to Paris. I cannot do so before. Meanwhile, I strongly advise that she, or preferably you for her, communicate with the police--try and see the Prefect of Police himself. I myself once obtained much courteous help from the Paris Prefect of Police."

Gerald stept down from the stuffy, dark telephone box. He turned to the attendant:--"How much do I owe you?" he asked briefly.

"A hundred and twenty francs, Monsieur," said the man suavely.

The Senator drew near. "That was an expensive suggestion of yours, Gerald,"

he observed smiling, as the other put down six gold pieces. And then he said, "Well?"

"Well, father, there's not much to tell. This Mr. Stephens will come over on Friday if there's still no news of Mr. Dampier by then. He wants us to go to the Prefecture of Police. He says we ought to try and get at the Prefect of Police himself."

There came a long pause: the two were walking along a crowded street.

Suddenly Gerald stopped and turned to the Senator. "Father," he said impulsively, "I suppose that now, at last, you do believe Mrs.

Dampier's story?"

The young man spoke with a vehemence and depth of feeling which disturbed his father. What a good thing it was that this English lawyer was coming to relieve them all from a weight and anxiety which was becoming, to the Senator himself, if not to the two younger people, quite intolerable.

"Well," he said at last, "I am of course glad to know that everything, so far, goes to prove that Mrs. Dampier's account of herself is true."

"That being so, don't you think the Hotel Saint Ange ought to be searched?"

"Searched?" repeated Senator Burton slowly. "Searched for what?"

"If I had charge of this business--I mean sole charge--the first thing I would do would be to have the Hotel Saint Ange searched from top to bottom!" said Gerald vehemently.

"Is that Mrs. Dampier's suggestion?"

"No, father, it's mine. I had a talk with that boy Jules last night, and I'm convinced he's lying. There's another thing I should like to do. I should like to go to the office of the 'New York Herald' and enlist the editor's help. I would have done it long ago if this man Dampier had been an American."

"And you would have done a very foolish thing, my boy." The Senator spoke with more dry decision than was his wont. "Come, come, Gerald, you and I mustn't quarrel over this affair! Let us think of the immediate thing to do." He put his hand on his son's arm.

"Yes, father?"

"I suppose that the first thing to do is to take this Mr. Stephens'

advice?"

"Why, of course, father! Will you, or shall I, go to the Prefecture of Police?"

"Well, Gerald, I have bethought myself of that courteous President of the French Senate who wrote me such a pleasant note when we first arrived in Paris this time. No doubt he would give me a personal introduction to the Prefect of Police."

"Why, father, that's a first rate idea! Hadn't you better go right now and get it?"

"Yes, perhaps I had; and meanwhile you can tell the poor little woman that her friend will be here on Friday."

"Yes, I will. And father? May I tell Daisy that now you agree with me about Mrs. Dampier--that you no longer believe the Poulains' story?"

"No," said Senator Burton a little sternly. "You are to say nothing of the sort, Gerald. I have only known this girl three days--I have known the Poulains nine years. Of course it's a great relief to me to learn that Mrs.

Dampier's account of herself is true--so far as you've been able to ascertain such a fact in a few minutes' conversation with an unknown man over the telephone--but that does not affect my good opinion of the Poulains."

And on this the father and son parted, for the first time in their joint lives, seriously at odds the one with the other.

"Give you an introduction to our Prefect of Police? Why, certainly!"

The white-haired President of the French Senate looked curiously at the American gentleman who had sought him out at the early hour of eleven o'clock.

"You will find Monsieur Beaucourt a charming man," he went on. "I hear nothing but good of the way he does his very difficult work. He is a type to whom you are used in America, my dear Senator, but whom we perhaps too often lack in France among those who govern us. Monsieur Beaucourt is a strong man--a man who takes his own line and sticks to it. I was told only the other day that crime had greatly diminished in our city since he became Prefect. He is thoroughly trusted by his subordinates, and you can imagine what that means when one remembers that our beautiful Paris is the resort of all the international rogues of Europe. And if they tease us by their presence at ordinary times, you can imagine what it is like during an Exhibition Year!"

CHAPTER IX

In all French public offices there is a strange mingling of the sordid and of the magnificent.

The Paris Prefecture of Police is a huge, quadrangular building, containing an infinity of bare, and to tell the truth, shabby, airless rooms; yet when Senator Burton had handed in his card and the note from the President of the French Senate, he was taken rapidly down a long corridor, and ushered into a splendid apartment, of which the walls were hung with red velvet, and which might have been a reception room in an Italian Palace rather than the study of a French police official.

"Monsieur le Prefet will be back from dejeuner in a few minutes," said the man, softly closing the door.

The Senator looked round him with a feeling of keen interest and curiosity.

After the weary, baffling hours of fruitless effort in which he had spent the last three days, it was more than pleasant to find himself at the fountainhead of reliable information.

Since the far-off days when, as a boy, he had been thrilled by the brilliant detective stories of which French writers, with the one outstanding exception of Poe, then had a monopoly, there had never faded from Senator Burton's mind that first vivid impression of the power, the might, the keen intelligence, and yes, of the unscrupulousness, of the Paris police.

But now, having penetrated into the inner shrine of this awe-inspiring organism, he naturally preferred to think of the secret autocratic powers, and of the almost uncanny insight of those to whom he was about to make appeal. Surely they would soon probe the mystery of John Dampier's disappearance.

The door opened suddenly, and the Paris Prefect of Police walked into the room. He was holding Senator Burton's card, and the letter of introduction with which that card had been accompanied, in his sinewy nervous looking hand.

Bowing, smiling, apologising with more earnestness than was necessary for the few moments the American Senator had had to await his presence, the Prefect motioned his guest to a chair.

"I am very pleased," he said in courtly tones, "to put myself at the disposal of a member of the American Senate. Ah, sir, your country is a wonderful country! In a sense, the parent of France--for was not America the first great nation to become a Republic?"

Senator Burton bowed, a little awkwardly, in response to this flowery sentiment.

He was telling himself that Monsieur Beaucourt was quite unlike the picture he had mentally formed, from youth upwards, of the Paris Prefect of Police.

There was nothing formidable, nothing for the matter of that in the least awe-inspiring, about this tired, amiable-looking man. The Prefect was also lacking in the alert, authoritative manner which the layman all the world over is apt to a.s.sociate with the word "police."

Monsieur Beaucourt sat down behind his ornate buhl writing-table, and shooting out his right hand he pressed an electric bell.

With startling suddenness, a panel disappeared noiselessly into the red velvet draped wall, and in the aperture so formed a good-looking young man stood smiling.

"My secretary, Monsieur le Senateur--my secretary, who is also my nephew."

The Senator rose and bowed.

"Andre? Please say that I am not to be disturbed till this gentleman's visit is concluded." The young man nodded: and then he withdrew as quickly, as silently, as he had appeared; and the panel slipped noiselessly back behind him.