And who in the world would ever believe anybody else guilty when they learned that André Duchemin, your guest for three weeks, was only an alias for Michael Lanyard, otherwise the Lone Wolf?"

But what Duchemin could by no means fathom was the reason why Phinuit should choose, and how he should rule the choice of his party, in the face of such threatening weather, to stop in Nant for an early dinnerwith Millau only an hour away and the chances fair that before the storm broke the automobile would reach the latter city with its superior hotel and restaurant accommodations.