-on the Quai d'Lorme."

"Come with me to it, then. I'll make you the most envied man in
France, Ducroix: I'll deliver into your hands that witch of the
underworld, Margot, the Queen of the Apaches!"

Ducroix's face lit up like a face transfigured.

"M'sieur!" he cried. "That woman? You can give me that woman? You
know her? You can recognize her? But, yes, I remember! You shall have
her in your hands once in your own country, but she shall slip you,
as she shall slip everybody!"

"She won't slip _you_, then, I promise you that!" said Narkom.
"Reward and glory, both shall be yours. I have followed her across
the channel, Ducroix. I know where she is to be found for a
certainty. She is at the Inn of the Seven Sinners. Just take me
there and I'll turn the Jezebel over to you."

Ducroix needed no urging. The prospect of such a capture made
him fairly beside himself with delight. In twenty swift words he
translated this glorious news to his men--setting them as wild with
excitement as he was himself--then with a sharp, "Come, m'sieur!" he
turned on his heel and led the breathless race for the goal.

Halfway down the narrow, ink-black street that led to the inn they
encountered Dollops pelting back at full speed.

"Come on, guv'ner, come on, all of you!" he broke out as he came
abreast of them. "She's there--they're all there--kickin' up Meg's
diversions, sir, and singin' and dancin' like mad. And, sir, he's
there, too--the pedler chap! I see him come up and sneak in with the
rest. Come on! This way, all of you."

If they had merely run before, they all but flew now; for this
second assurance that Margot, the great and long-sought-for Margot,
was actually within their reach served to spur every man to
outdo himself; so that it was but a minute or two later when
they came in sight of the inn and bore down upon it in a solid
phalanx. And then--just then--when another minute would have
settled everything--the demon of mischance chose to play them a
scurvy trick.

All they knew of it was that an Apache coming out of the building for
some purpose of his own looked up and saw them, then faced round
and bent back in the doorway; that of a sudden a very tornado of
music and laughter and singing and dancing rolled out into the
night, and that when they came pounding up to the doorway, the fellow
was lounging there serenely smoking; and, inside, his colleagues
were holding a revel wild enough to wake the dead.

In the wink