Whilst Juve and Henri de Loubersac were watching through the midnight hours for the arrival of the traitors, Fandor in his hotel was also on the alert. He did not mean to sleep a wink. The noise of the merry-making below helped him in that.... The revellers retired at last, and silence fell on The Flowery Crossways. Fandor, feigning sleep, lay as still as a mouse; but how interminable seemed the hours!

"Ah!" thought Fandor, "if only my abbÉ were sleeping, I should decamp; but that little bundle of mystery is wide awake: I can sense his wakefulness!"

Fandor lay listening for the next eternity of an hour to strike and pass into limbo.... At last dawn began to break: the window curtains became transparent, a cock crowed in the yard below, the voice of a stable-boy sounded loud in the stillness of early day.

"You are awake, Corporal?" asked the priest in a low voice.

"Quite, Monsieur l'AbbÉ. You feel rested?"

"I only dosed off a little."

"Liar!" thought Fandor. He replied:

"That is just what I did!" Fandor yawned loudly.

"Will you get up first, Corporal? When you have finished dressing I will start.... In that way we shall not interfere with each other."

"But, Monsieur l'AbbÉ, I do not want to keep you waiting.... Do get up first!"

"Certainly not! No, no! Do not let us stand on ceremony."

Fandor did not insist. He was too pleased with his room-mate's request.

In next to no time—with a kind of barrack-room lick and polish—Fandor-Vinson had washed his face, had dressed, was ready.

"My dear AbbÉ," said he, "if you would like me to, I will ascertain whether your chauffeur is up, and will tell him to get ready to start."

"I was going to ask you to do that very thing, Corporal."

As the door closed on him, Fandor turned with an ironic salute towards the little priest.

"Much pleased!" said he to himself. "And with the hope of never meeting you on my road without Juve on my heels to offer you a pair of handcuffs—the right bracelets for you, and richly deserved."

Fandor did not awaken the chauffeur. He went into the yard: there he encountered the hotel-keeper. A brazen lie was the safe way, he decided.

"We have passed a very good night," declared he. "My companions are getting ready.... I am going to see if the car is in order for our start."

To himself Fandor added: "As my little priest's window looks in the opposite direction he cannot see what I am up to."

Fandor was an expert chauffeur. The car was fully supplied with petrol and water—was in admirable order. The hotel-keeper was watching him.

"If they ask for me," said Fandor-Vinson, "tell them I have gone for a test run, and will be back in three minutes."

With that he jumped into his seat, set the car in motion, passed beneath the archway and on to the high road. He turned in the direction of Barentin.

Fandor felt the charm of this early drive through the pastoral lands of Normandy. Hope rose in him: was he not escaping from the terrifying consequences of his Vinson masquerade!

"Evidently," thought he, "I must definitely abandon the rÔle of soldier: the risks are too great: if the military authorities laid me by the heels, it would be all up with Fandor-Vinson!... The real Vinson is certainly in foreign parts by now, and safe from arrest.... I know by sight the head spies at Verdun, the Norbet brothers: the elegant tourist and his car, and that false priest!... I can continue my investigations better in my own shoes, and I can get Juve to help me!"

His thoughts dwelt on the mysterious abbÉ.

"I would give a jolly lot to know who this pretended abbÉ really is!"

He tore through the village of Barentin at racing speed.

A covered cart full of peasants stopped the way. Fandor drew up. He addressed the driver:

"Monsieur, I have rather lost my bearings: will you kindly tell me in which direction the nearest railway station lies?"

The driver, who was the mail carrier for Maronne, answered civilly:

"You must go to Motteville, Corporal. At the first cross-roads you come to, turn to the right—keep straight on—that will bring you to the station."

Corporal Fandor-Vinson thanked the man, and started off in the direction indicated.

"All I have to do now," thought he, "is to discover some nice, lonely spot for."...

Shortly after this he sighted a grove with a thick undergrowth. It bordered the road. Fandor rushed his machine into a field, and brought it to a stand-still in the centre of a clump of trees. He alighted.

"That motor is a good goer," said he, "but it is too dangerous a companion—too conspicuous a mark."

As he thought of the stranded bundle of mystery at The Flowery Crossways he laughed. Then he started for the station at a steady pace.

The chauffeur woke. He saw it was nine o'clock.

"Good lord!... I shall catch it hot! We were to start at eight!"

He dressed hastily; ran down to the yard; stared about him: his car had vanished. Was he still dreaming?... He ran round to the front of the hotel—no car! Was the car stolen?... Had they set off without him?... The hotel-keeper was marketing in Rouen.... The stablemen could throw no light on this mystery.

"Probably one of your masters has gone for a turn," suggested a man.

The chauffeur's anger grew.

"If they've dared to!" he shouted. "It is not their car!... I'm not in their service!... That curÉ came to my garage yesterday and hired my car for an outing.... What business has this curÉ or his soldier to move my car?... I'll teach them who and what I am!"...

The farm boys, stable lads and men were shouting with laughter at the chauffeur's fury. Said one:

"You know their room, don't you?... Why not see if they are in it?... Make sure you have cause for all this dust up!"

The chauffeur rushed upstairs four at a time! He banged on the door of the room taken by his temporary employer and the corporal—banged and thumped!... No response!... He tried the door—unlocked!... He opened it, looked in—empty!

Cursing and raging, the chauffeur clattered downstairs and collided with the hotel-keeper.

"Where is my curÉ?" shouted the chauffeur.

"Your curÉ?" echoed the good fellow, staring.

"Yes, my curÉ. Or his corporal!... Where are they?... Where, I say?"

"Where are they?" gaped the hotel-keeper.

The entire hotel staff was grouped in the background, laughing.

"It's my car! I can't find it!... Do you know where it is?"

"Your car!" exclaimed the hotel-keeper. "But the corporal went off two hours ago and more! He was going for a 'trial spin,' was what he told me!"

"Was the curÉ with him?"

"No. The curÉ left just after him, saying he was going to send off a telegram. Was it not true?"

The chauffeur sank on a chair.

"Here's a low-down trick!... Those dirty thieves have cut off with my car! Let me catch them! I'll give them beans and a bit!"

The 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 he had not a sou on him.

Finally the chauffeur set off; perched on a big white mare which had been rejected time and again by the Remount Department, he took the road at a galloping trot. When he reached Father Flory's field he gave a sigh of satisfaction. He recognised his car. It proved to be in good condition. Whoever had driven it knew what he was about.

"It was the corporal," decided the joyful chauffeur. "That little curÉ would be afraid of spoiling his little white hands!"

Surrounded by a crowd of peasants who had hurried from all the farms in the neighbourhood, to see the motor-car which had grown up in a single night in Father Flory's field, the chauffeur set his car in motion. Hard work! The car had been driven deep into the soft soil.... At last he got to the road.

"A very good evening to you, ladies and gentlemen!" he shouted to the peasants who, with ironic grins and hands in pockets, had watched him at work. Not one had come forward to help him!

He set off at top speed for The Flowery Crossways.

Meanwhile the police sergeant, important, in full official uniform, had started for The Flowery Crossways, accompanied by the hotel-keeper.

"This affair requires looking into," he announced. "The law will have more than a word to say about it. I must get further information and make notes."

He, with the hotel-keeper at his heels, mounted to the little room where Fandor and the little priest had passed the night. The policeman uncovered on entering what he considered a sumptuous, superbly decorated room. He had not the least idea how to set about his investigations in order to get the best results. He seated himself in an arm-chair. He fixed his eyes on the hotel-keeper.

"Do you know the name of these individuals?"

The hotel-keeper, thinking of the eighteen francs he had lost, and of how he could indemnify himself, paid scant attention to the sergeant's so-called investigations.

"Look here!" he cried. "That's a good thing! In their haste they have forgotten to take this package!... There may be things of value in it!... I may be able to pay myself out of them!"

The policeman rose: he also examined the package.

"In the name of the law I shall open this package to ascertain exactly what is in it."

The two men undid the rope tightly bound round the covering; but whilst mine host of The Flowery Crossways had no idea of what the contents of the package signified, the sergeant, who had formerly served in the artillery, went white: his voice was stern.

"This is serious—very serious—it is the mouthpiece of a large gun—larger than any I have come across!"

The recovered motor-car drew up before The Flowery Crossways with a flourish. The beaming chauffeur jumped down and went towards the hotel-keeper and the police sergeant.

"It was my car all right!" he cried. "And I believed that never again should I set eyes on it!... When I think."...

The chauffeur stopped short; the unresponsive hotel-keeper and the police sergeant were staring at him fixedly. Not a word did they utter.

The chauffeur stared in turn: then he asked:

"Well?... What is it?... Are you frozen, you two?... What's the matter with you?... I inform you that I have found my motor, and that's how you take it!"

The police sergeant answered:

"I must ask you to give us some highly necessary information and explanations.... Do you know anything about the priest and the soldier who hired your car and you?"

There was a questioning pause. The chauffeur broke it.

"I have already told you that I do not know them.... If I did, things would not have happened as they have!... Now, why have you asked me that question?"

The policeman's reply was another question: his tone was stern.

"Then you declare you had no idea of what they were taking with them in your car?"

"What they were taking with them in my car?" repeated the chauffeur in a tone of bewildered interrogation.

The police sergeant marched up to him.

"Look here, now! It is incredible that you do not know what is in that corded-up package you carried in your car! And now your masters have disappeared; we are to believe that you know nothing about that either!... And now you return!... What is the reason of that?... And is it to be supposed that I am going to allow you to make off again without asking you to explain yourself and this extraordinary situation?"

The chauffeur saw that the hotel-keeper sided with the police sergeant: there was no support to be got in that quarter.

"Explain yourself, policeman!" burst out the chauffeur. "What's all this humbugging claptrap you are giving me?"

"In the name of the law!" declared the offended police officer, in solemn tones: "I think it advisable to arrest you!... You may consider yourself my prisoner!"...

As the astounded chauffeur could not find words to answer this, the sergeant added:

"Ah! My fine fellow! This is the way, then, you steal guns to help the Germans to shoot the French? It's a mercy I spotted you!"

"But you are mad!—mad!—mad!" protested the chauffeur.... "You."...

The police sergeant cut him short.

"That is enough!... I am going to take you to Rouen!... You can account for yourself to the magistrates!"