"And now …?" she asked breathlessly.
"Now for our get-away," he replied with assumed lightness. "Before dawn we must be out of Paris. … Two minutes, while I straighten this place up and leave it as I found it."
He moved back to the safe, restored the wing of the screen to the spot from which he had moved it, and after an instant's close examination of the rug, began to explore his pockets.
"What are you looking for?" the girl enquired.
"My memoranda of the combination—"
"I have it." She indicated its place in a pocket of her coat. "You left it on the floor, and I was afraid you might forget—"
"No fear!" he laughed. "No"—as she offered him the folded paper—"keep it and destroy it, once we're out of this. Now those portières …"
Extinguishing the desk-light, he turned attention to the draperies at doors and windows. …
Within five minutes, they were once more in the silent streets of Passy.
They had to walk as far as the Trocadéro before Lanyard found a fiacre, which he later dismissed at the corner in the Faubourg St. Germain.
Another brief walk brought them to a gate in the garden wall of a residence at the junction of two quiet streets.
"This, I think, ends our Parisian wanderings," Lanyard announced. "If you'll be good enough to keep an eye out for busybodies—and yourself as inconspicuous as possible in this doorway …"
