"M'sieur le Juge!" he cried out, extending his two arms. "Soul of
Misfortunes, how shall I tell? He is not there--he is gone--he is
escape, that unknown one. When I shall unlock the room and call
for Jean Lamareau, the drunkard, at the case before the last,
there shall come out of the dimness to me what I shall think is he
and I shall bring him here and he shall be fine and dismissed. But,
m'sieur, he shall not be Jean Lamareau after all! I shall go now and
call for the unknown and I shall get no answer; I shall go in and
make of the place light, and there he shall be, that real Jean
Lamareau--stripped of his clothes, choked to unconsciousness, alone
on the floor, and the other shall have paid his fine and gone!"

A great cry went up, a wild confusion filled the court. The Apaches
within rose and ran with the news to the Apaches without; and
these, joining forces, scattered and ran through the streets in the
direction the escaped prisoner had been seen to take.

But through it all Narkom sat there squeezing his hands together
and laughing in little shaking gusts that had a heart throb wavering
through them; for to him this could mean but one thing.

"Cleek!" he said, leaning down and shrilling a joyous whisper into
Dollops' ear. "But one man in all the world could have done that
thing--but one man in all the world would have dared. It was he--it
was Cleek! God bless his bully soul!"

"Amen, sir," said Dollops, swallowing something; then he rose at
Narkom's bidding and followed him outside.

A minute later a gamin brushing against them put out a grimy hand
and said whiningly:

"Boulogne, messieurs. Quai des Anges. Third house back from the
waterside; in time for the noon boat across to Folkestone. Give
me two francs, please. The monsieur said you would if I said that to
you when you came out."

The two francs were in his hand almost as he ceased speaking, and in
less than a minute later a fiacre was whirling Narkom and Dollops off
to the railway station and the next outgoing train to Boulogne. It
was still short of midday when they arrived at the Quai des Anges
and made their way to the third house back from the waterside--a
little tavern with a toy garden in front and a sort of bowered
arcade behind--and there under an almond tree, with a cigarette
between his fingers and a bunch of flowers in his buttonhole, they
came upon _him_ at last.

"Guv'ner! Oh, Gawd bless you, guv'ner, is it really you again?" said
D