Travelers who board trains at provincial railway stations cannot escape official observation. Therefore, what the station master and ticket agent told him was sufficient for him.
He went slowly back along the river quay, crossed diagonally in front of the deserted cabaret, entered the Impasse d’Alcyon, and traversed it to the river bank, where Halkett sat under the big willow tree, smoking his pipe and letting the rowboat float by the chain which he held in his hands.
"Halkett," he said, "they’re in Ausone or near it. I’m convinced of that. Their car came in with only two men in it. The military confiscated it. The men’s names are Adolf Meier and Josef Hoffman, and they inscribed themselves as commercial travelers from Paris. Do you happen to know them?"
"By any chance are they any of the gentlemen who have been following you?"
"Exactly. Both have had several shots at me."
"That is interesting. The address they left with the military authorities is the Boule d’Argent.
"What I have found out is this: the Cabaret de Biribi has been closed and sealed up by the police; the café remains open. A waiter in the café thought he saw Philippa at the window of her apartment over the cabaret just before noon today.
"But Wildresse, they all say, went away this morning and has not returned. And they have no idea when to expect him.
"Now, my theory is this: Wildresse and his ruffians, realizing that their own necks are in danger, went to Saïs to see Philippa, either to bully her into silence or persuade her to return to duty. When they saw her by the roadside they changed their plans and took a chance. I don’t believe they saw us. We were on our knees in the grass under the shadow of the hedge. After they caught her they never looked around. I don’t believe any of them noticed us at all. Before the car reached Ausone they must have stopped in some deserted place, found a boat somewhere, sent the car on ahead to Ausone with only two men in it, and then Wildresse and the other two men must have dragged or carried Philippa across the fields to the river and forced her into the boat. That was the only way they could have ventured to enter Ausone. They must have gone by boat to the garden behind the cabaret, where nobody could see what was going on, and there they probably let themselves into the house by the rear entrance.