led to obtain
a glimpse of the number on the plate.

But I had seen something which had repaid me for my trouble. As the
man of the scar had walked up to the car, had exhibited to the
brown-skinned chauffeur some object which he held in the palm of his
hand ... an object which glittered like gold!

II. "LE BALAFRE"

CHAPTER I

I BECOME CHARLES MALET

Behold me established in rooms in Battersea and living retired during
the day while I permitted my beard to grow. I had recognized that my
mystery of "The Scorpion" was the biggest case which had ever engaged
the attention of the Service de Surete, and I was prepared, if
necessary, to devote my whole time for twelve months to its solution.
I had placed myself in touch with Paris, and had had certain papers
and licenses forwarded to me. A daily bulletin reached me, and one of
these bulletins was sensational.

The body of Jean Sach had been recovered from the Seine. The man had
been stabbed to the heart. Surveillance of Miguel and his associates
continued unceasingly, but I had directed that no raids or arrests
were to be made without direct orders from me.

I was now possessed of a French motor license and also that of a Paris
taxi-driver, together with all the other documents necessary to
establish the identity of one Charles Malet. Everything was in order.
I presented myself--now handsomely bearded--at New Scotland Yard and
applied for a license. The "knowledge of London" and other tests I
passed successfully and emerged a fully-fledged cabman!

Already I had opened negotiations for the purchase of a dilapidated
but seviceable cab which belonged to a small proprietor who had
obtained a car of more up-to-date pattern to replace this obsolete
one. I completed these negotiations by paying down a certain sum and
arranged to garage my cab in the disused stable of a house near my
rooms in Battersea.

Thus I now found myself in a position to appear anywhere at any time
without exciting suspicion, enabled swiftly to proceed from point to
point and to pursue anyone either walking or driving whom it might
please me to pursue. It was a _modus operandi_ which had served me well
in Paris and which had led to one of my biggest successes (the capture
of the French desperado known as "Mr. Q.") in New York.

I had obtained, _via_ Paris, particulars of the recent death of Sir
Frank Narcombe, and the circumstances attendant upon his end were so
similar to those which ha