The two inspectors, Folenfant and
Dieuzy, were assigned to assist Ganimard.

One foggy morning in January the prison gates opened and Baudru Desire
stepped forth--a free man. At first he appeared to be quite embarrassed,
and walked like a person who has no precise idea whither he is going.
He followed the rue de la Sante and the rue Saint Jacques. He stopped in
front of an old-clothes shop, removed his jacket and his vest, sold his
vest on which he realized a few sous; then, replacing his jacket, he
proceeded on his way. He crossed the Seine. At the Chatelet an
omnibus passed him. He wished to enter it, but there was no place.
The controller advised him to secure a number, so he entered the
waiting-room.

Ganimard called to his two assistants, and, without removing his eyes
from the waiting room, he said to them:

"Stop a carriage.... no, two. That will be better. I will go with one of
you, and we will follow him."

The men obeyed. Yet Baudru did not appear. Ganimard entered the
waiting-room. It was empty.

"Idiot that I am!" he muttered, "I forgot there was another exit."

There was an interior corridor extending from the waiting-room to the
rue Saint Martin. Ganimard rushed through it and arrived just in time to
observe Baudru upon the top of the Batignolles-Jardin de Plates omnibus
as it was turning the corner of the rue de Rivoli. He ran and caught
the omnibus. But he had lost his two assistants. He must continue the
pursuit alone. In his anger he was inclined to seize the man by the
collar without ceremony. Was it not with premeditation and by means of
an ingenious ruse that his pretended imbecile had separated him from his
assistants?

He looked at Baudru. The latter was asleep on the bench, his head
rolling from side to side, his mouth half-opened, and an incredible
expression of stupidity on his blotched face. No, such an adversary was
incapable of deceiving old Ganimard. It was a stroke of luck--nothing
more.

At the Galleries-Lafayette, the man leaped from the omnibus and took
the La Muette tramway, following the boulevard Haussmann and the
avenue Victor Hugo. Baudru alighted at La Muette station; and, with a
nonchalant air, strolled into the Bois de Boulogne.

He wandered through one path after another, and sometimes retraced his
steps. What was he seeking? Had he any definite object? At the end of
an hour, he appeared to be faint from fatigue, and, noticing a bench, he
sat down. The spot, not far