ould call for
it again, but the waiter would naturally wonder why he did not give it
to the _concierge_, and have it sent to his rooms; besides, the
_garcon_ was wildly suspicious. The waiter felt his unfortunate
position. He dare not leave the Cafe Vernon, for he now knew that he
was a marked man. At the Vernon he had police protection, while if he
went anywhere else he would have no more safeguard than any other
citizen; so he stayed on at the Vernon, such a course being, he
thought, the least of two evils. But he watched every incomer much more
sharply than did the policeman.

Dupre also realised that there was another difficulty about the handbag
scheme. The dynamite must be set off either by a fuse or by clockwork
machinery. A fuse caused smoke, and the moment a man touched a bag
containing clockwork his hand felt the thrill of moving machinery. A
man who hears for the first time the buzz of the rattlesnake's signal,
like the shaking of dry peas in a pod, springs instinctively aside,
even though he knows nothing of snakes. How much more, therefore, would
a suspicious waiter, whose nerves were all alert for the soft, deadly
purr of dynamite mechanism, spoil everything the moment his hand
touched the bag? Yes, Dupre reluctantly admitted to himself, the
handbag theory was not practical. It led to either self-destruction or
prison.

What then was the next thing, as fuse or mechanism were unavailable?
There was the bomb that exploded when it struck, and Dupre had himself
made several. A man might stand in the middle of the street and shy it
in through the open door. But then he might miss the doorway. Also
until the hour the cafe closed the street was as light as day. Then the
policeman was all alert for people in the middle of the street. His own
safety depended upon it too. How was the man in the street to be
dispensed with, yet the result attained? If the Boulevard was not so
wide, a person on the opposite side in a front room might fire a
dynamite bomb across, as they do from dynamite guns, but then there
was--

"By God!" cried Dupre, "I have it!"

He drew in his outstretched legs, went to the window and threw it open,
gazing down for a moment at the pavement below. He must measure the
distance at night--and late at night too--he said to himself. He bought
a ball of cord, as nearly the colour of the front of the building as
possible. He left his window open, and after midnight ran the cord out
till he estimate