hotel was in an uproar; the wildest suggestions rained on the
distracted chauffeur. He pulled himself together; rose; called to the
hotel-keeper, who was mechanically searching the yard for the vanished
car:

"Where is the police station? I must warn the police. That priest and
corporal cannot have got so very far in two hours! They did not leave
together: they had to meet somewhere: they may not know how to manage
the car ... that means delay--a breakdown, perhaps!"

Mine host of _The Flowery Crossways_ was all the more ready to help
the chauffeur in that he had been cheated! Such fugitives would never
pay him the eighteen francs they owed him for bed and board unless
they were caught and made to disgorge.

"I will come with you to the police station," he announced. "I have my
complaint to make also!"

At the police station they saw the police sergeant himself. The
chauffeur had barely begun his tale of woe when the sergeant
interrupted with the smile of one imparting good news:

"You state that you have lost a motor-car. Does it happen to be red,
and will seat four persons?"

"Yes. That's it! Have you seen it?"

"Does it happen to have for number 1430 G-7?"

"Exact!... Has it passed this way?"

"Wait!... Were there not goatskin wraps inside?"

"Yes!... Yes!"

The sergeant laughed silently.

"Very well, then! I should say you were in luck! Now I am going to
tell you where your car is!"

The chauffeur beamed. "You know where my car is?"

"I do--a bare fifteen minutes ago it was found in the--open fields, on
Father Flory's land, some seventeen hundred yards from the Motteville
station.... Father Flory saw it when driving his cattle to pasture: he
asked himself if the car had not fallen from the skies during the
night!"

The hotel-keeper and chauffeur stared at each other. What had
possessed the fugitives to steal the car and then cast it away in the
open fields, so near the scene of their theft?... The devil was in it?

The hotel-keeper had an idea they had fled to avoid paying his bill.
The chauffeur cared only to get to the car as quickly as possible, to
assure himself that it was his car, and was not injured beyond repair.

After much haggling it was arranged that a little cart and horse
should take him to the desired spot. Meanwhile the hotel-keeper was to
go about his duties at _The Flowery Crossways_. The chauffeur must
needs return and telegraph to his garage in Paris for funds: he
declared