But as I crossed the Place Duguesclin I had a better idea. It was the lights of the Poste showing under the dark limes that put it into my head. Charlotte might be able to help me. Charlotte was the little Italian-looking toulonnaise who served the cafés and _fines_ outside the hotel and never failed to ask me how I had slept when she brought my coffee and roll in the morning. My French, I ought to say, though serviceable enough, is not of the same pure fount as was Derry's, and Charlotte even more than the other ladies of the hotel took the most charming and hospitable pains in talking with me. And I have always found that, whether in another tongue or in your own, a great deal of your ease depends on who you are talking to. What I mean is that Charlotte and I were friends. I walked into the large public room where Madame at her desk was casting up her day's accounts. The chairs were being piled on the marble-topped tables, and through the maze of their legs I saw that Charlotte had not yet gone. That was my idea. I knew that Charlotte lived, not in the hotel, but somewhere in the town, coming and going daily. I approached her. I will give our low and brief conversation in English. "Have you remarked in the town, Charlotte, a young woman of such-and-such a manner of dress and such-and-such a face and hair, especially the hair, who buys her bread and groceries a little late at night and possibly on a bicycle?" "The shops are closed when one leaves this hotel, M'sieu'," sighed Charlotte. "But you inhabit the town. I will re-describe." I did so. "If it were possible to furnish me with renseignements----" "Hold, M'sieu'. This lady is French?" "Only exteriorly. Without doubt she speaks French, but as I do myself, like a Spanish cow." "Non, non, M'sieu'," Charlotte politely protested. "But wait. She is alone?" "She is with her French husband, the most beautiful young man even among the beautiful young men of France." (I was glad Alec was not there to hear me.) Charlotte gave an exclamation. "Then it _is_ they!" "Ah! And they live----?" "I do not know, M'sieu'. But Dinan is not very large." "Neither is this very large, Charlotte, but it may aggrandise itself----" And there passed between us certain pieces of postage-stamp-edging that united the filthy remnants of what had once been the notes of a Chamber of Commerce. I sought my candle and ascended to my room. In Dinan! Well, it was quite like him to have cunningly read our minds, anticipated our conclusions, and decided that Dinan was perhaps not so unsafe after all. And his mastery of French would enable him to remain obscure.