the plates
came the acrid stench of a broken bottle of acid.

"My God! Counterfeiting!" I exclaimed half aloud.

The Baron rose from his seat and stretched out his linked hands.

"She is innocent," he pleaded huskily, lifting his eyes to the woman. I
could not repress a feeling of profound pity for him.

The man in gray made no reply; instead he turned to me.

"I shall escort you, too, monsieur," he remarked coolly.

"Escort me? _Me?_ What have I got to do with it, I'd like to know?" I
cried, springing to my feet. "I wish to explain--to make clear to
you--_clear_. I want you to understand that I stumbled here by the
merest chance; that I never spoke to this man in my life until to-night,
that I accepted his hospitality purely because I did not wish to offend
him, although I had shot late and was in a hurry to get home."

He smiled quietly.

"Please do not worry," he returned, "we know all about you. You are the
American. Your house is the old one by the marsh in Pont du Sable. I
called on you this afternoon, but you were absent. I am really indebted
to you if you do but know it. By following your tracks, monsieur, we
stumbled on the nest we have so long been looking for. Permit me to hand
you my card. My name is Guinard--Sous Chief of the Paris Police."

I breathed easier--things were clearing up.

"And may I ask, monsieur, how you knew I had gone in the direction of La
Poche?" I inquired. That was still a mystery.

"You have a little maid," he replied; "and little maids can sometimes be
made to talk."

He paused and then said slowly, weighing each word.

"Yes, that no doubt surprises you, but we follow every clue. You were
both sportsmen; that, as you know, monsieur, is always a bond, and we
had not long to wait, although it was too dark for us to be quite sure
when you both passed me. It was the bolting of the door that clinched
the matter for me. But for the absence of two of my men on another scent
we should have disturbed you earlier. I must compliment you, monsieur,
on your knowledge of chartreuse as well as your taste for good cigars;
permit me to offer you another." Here he slipped his hand into his
pocket and handed me a duplicate of the one I had been smoking.

"Twelve boxes, Maceioe, were there not? Not expensive, eh, when purchased
with these?" and he spread out the identical bank-notes with which his
prisoner had paid for them in the Government store on the boulevard.

"As for you, monsieur