He started walking towards another flight of stairs a block down. How long had it been since he had walked down the ramp? he wondered. There had been the noise and the oily smoke from the automobile. The ramp should have been swarming with curious apes by now. But for some reason it wasn't.... It had shaken him, he thought slowly. His briefing on Thusca had mentioned nothing about an opposition organization of the apes. And in particular, it had mentioned nothing about a ... girl. He would have to warn the agents in his own organization, he thought abstractly. And it would probably be best to use a code name. He asked Tanner for a suggestion. "Use a girl's name," Tanner mused. "Say ... Avis." Stan looked at him sharply and had the odd feeling that was really the girl's name. And then he recalled Tanner racing down the ramp screaming "_Don't let her get away!_" and the disappointed look on his face when she had. Tanner, Stan decided suddenly, had lied about not knowing her. "She'll probably be around again," Tanner mused out loud. "And soon." The second agent disappeared in Paris, two weeks later. CHAPTER VII It was eight o'clock Thursday evening when Stan stepped out of a faintly glowing circle of black light in a small alley off the Rue Pigalle in Paris. He calmly lit a cigarette and walked down the street to a small cafe. It was bigger on the inside than it looked from the street. A long, low-ceilinged room with a tiny platform and a small band, almost hidden by the cigarette smoke, at the far end. Tanner and Reynolds, one of Stan's lieutenants, were seated at a small table along the side, earnestly talking to a frightened little man with an old-fashioned walrus moustache. Stan squeezed in next to the little man and introduced himself. He ordered wine, then said: "You know the arrangements?" The little man looked stubborn. "I'm not sure I like it." "We're not asking much--and we'll pay well." The little man made a show of licking his lips and nervously twisting his moustache. "I don't get you, guv'nor. You want to give me a hundred thousand francs just to deliver a package to the souvenir stand at the top of the Eiffel Tower?" "You're to give the girl a hundred francs," Stan cut in smoothly. "And ask her if she'll hold it for a Monsieur Lorenz." The little man's eyelids drooped suggestively. "You're up to no good and a hundred thousand francs doesn't seem to me to cover it." Stan moved in closer, threateningly. The little man thrust out his chin and glared at him. "Just you watch your step, guv'nor! All I 'ave to do is 'oller 'elp and fifty people will be on your neck. And what's to keep me from talking about this anyways?" "I could kill you right while you sit there," Stan said quietly. "I could do it and you wouldn't make a sound and nobody would know you were dead until ten minutes after we left."