detail of it. Then he revealed what the grave affair was."I believe, Monsieur le Ministre, that we at last hold the perpetrator ofthe crime in the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy."At this, Monferrand, who had been listening impatiently, became quiteimpassioned. The fruitless searches of the police, the attacks and thejeers of the newspapers, were a source of daily worry to him. "Ah!--Well,so much the better for you Monsieur Gascogne," he replied with brutalfrankness. "You would have ended by losing your post. The man isarrested?"
"Not yet, Monsieur le Ministre; but he cannot escape, and it is merely anaffair of a few hours."
Then the Chief of the Detective Force told the whole story: how DetectiveMondesir, on being warned by a secret agent that the Anarchist Salvat wasin a tavern at Montmartre, had reached it just as the bird had flown;then how chance had again set him in presence of Salvat at a hundredpaces or so from the tavern, the rascal having foolishly loitered thereto watch the establishment; and afterwards how Salvat had been stealthilyshadowed in the hope that they might catch him in his hiding-place withhis accomplices. And, in this wise, he had been tracked to thePorte-Maillot, where, realising, no doubt, that he was pursued, he hadsuddenly bolted into the Bois de Boulogne. It was there that he had beenhiding since two o'clock in the morning in the drizzle which had notceased to fall. They had waited for daylight in order to organise a_battue_ and hunt him down like some animal, whose weariness mustnecessarily ensure capture. And so, from one moment to another, he wouldbe caught.
"I know the great interest you take in the arrest, Monsieur le Ministre,"added Gascogne, "and it occurred to me to ask your orders. DetectiveMondesir is over there, directing the hunt. He regrets that he did notapprehend the man on the Boulevard de Rochechouart; but, all the same,the idea of following him was a capital one, and one can only reproachMondesir with having forgotten the Bois de Boulogne in his calculations."Salvat arrested! That fellow Salvat whose name had filled the newspapersfor three weeks past. This was a most fortunate stroke which would betalked of far and wide! In the depths of Monferrand's fixed eyes onecould divine a world of thoughts and a sudden determination to turn thisincident which chance had brought him to his own personal advantage. Inhis own mind a link was already forming between this arrest and thatAfrican Railways interpellation which was likely to overthrow theministry on the morrow. The first outlines of a scheme already rosebefore him. Was it not his good star that had sent him what he had beenseeking--a means of fishing himself out of the troubled waters of theapproaching crisis?
"But tell me, Monsieur Gascogne," said he, "are you quite sure that thisman Salvat committed the crime?"
"Oh! perfectly sure, Monsieur le Ministre. He'll confess everything inthe cab before he reaches the Prefecture."Monferrand again walked to and fro with a pensive air, and ideas came tohim as he spoke on in a slow, meditative fashion. "My orders! well, myorders, they are, first, that you must act with the very greatest
