and I have to do it while he is leaving
the country."

"But what can this mean?" cried Flambeau. "He can't be afraid of that
little Hirsch! Confound it!" he cried, in a kind of rational rage;
"nobody could be afraid of Hirsch!"

"I believe it's some plot!" snapped Valognes--"some plot of the Jews and
Freemasons. It's meant to work up glory for Hirsch..."

The face of Father Brown was commonplace, but curiously contented; it
could shine with ignorance as well as with knowledge. But there was
always one flash when the foolish mask fell, and the wise mask fitted
itself in its place; and Flambeau, who knew his friend, knew that his
friend had suddenly understood. Brown said nothing, but finished his
plate of fish.

"Where did you last see our precious Colonel?" asked Flambeau,
irritably.

"He's round at the Hotel Saint Louis by the Elysee, where we drove with
him. He's packing up, I tell you."

"Will he be there still, do you think?" asked Flambeau, frowning at the
table.

"I don't think he can get away yet," replied the Duke; "he's packing to
go a long journey..."

"No," said Father Brown, quite simply, but suddenly standing up, "for a
very short journey. For one of the shortest, in fact. But we may still
be in time to catch him if we go there in a motor-cab."

Nothing more could be got out of him until the cab swept round the
corner by the Hotel Saint Louis, where they got out, and he led the
party up a side lane already in deep shadow with the growing dusk. Once,
when the Duke impatiently asked whether Hirsch was guilty of treason or
not, he answered rather absently: "No; only of ambition--like Caesar."
Then he somewhat inconsequently added: "He lives a very lonely life; he
has had to do everything for himself."

"Well, if he's ambitious, he ought to be satisfied now," said Flambeau
rather bitterly. "All Paris will cheer him now our cursed Colonel has
turned tail."

"Don't talk so loud," said Father Brown, lowering his voice, "your
cursed Colonel is just in front."

The other two started and shrank farther back into the shadow of the
wall, for the sturdy figure of their runaway principal could indeed be
seen shuffling along in the twilight in front, a bag in each hand. He
looked much the same as when they first saw him, except that he had
changed his picturesque mountaineering knickers for a conventional pair
of trousers. It was clear he was already escaping from the hotel.

The lane down which they fo