He himself went out a few minutes later, dragging in his wake the detectives attached to his person, left them posted on sentry duty outside a block of flats with a double entrance, and took a motor cab to Neuilly.
He went along the Avenue de Madrid on foot and turned down the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, opposite the Bois de Boulogne. Mazeroux was waiting for him in front of a small three-storied house standing at the back of a courtyard contained within the very high walls of the adjoining property.
"Is this number eight?"
"Yes, Chief, but tell me how"
"One moment, old chap; give me time to recover my breath."
He gave two or three great gasps.
"Lord, how good it is to be up and doing!" he said. "Upon my word, I was getting rusty. And what a pleasure to pursue those scoundrels! So you want me to tell you?"
He passed his arm through the sergeant's.
"Listen, Alexandre, and profit by my words. Remember this: when a person is choosing initials for his address at a poste restante he doesn't pick them at random, but always in such a way that the letters convey a meaning to the person corresponding with him, a meaning which will enable that other person easily to remember the address."
"And in this case?"
"In this case, Mazeroux, a man like myself, who knows Neuilly and the neighbourhood of the Bois, is at once struck by those three letters, 'B. R. W.' and especially by the 'W.', a foreign letter, an English letter. So that in
