We were in the office of the chief of police—a man called Christien Moire. I knew because I’d seen the name and title on the door. It was on his desk, too. Maybe he was worried he was going to forget it. He was the man in the gray suit whom I’d seen standing outside Le Chat Gris, the man who had been talking to the receptionist and who had later taken our photograph. Things were beginning to add up even if I still had no idea of the total.

“Another one hour and it would have been too late,” Moire went on. He spoke English as if he had no idea what he was saying, lingering on every word. He had the sort of accent you get in bad television shows: Anuzzer wan our an’ eet would ‘ave bin too late. I hope you get the idea. “You were very lucky,” he added.

“Sure,” I muttered. “And we’d have been even luckier if you’d arrived a couple of hours before.”

Moire shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said. But his dark, empty eyes looked about as apologetic as two lumps of ice. “We had no idea you had been taken,” he went on.

“Who are you?” Tim demanded. “You call yourself the Sûreté. But what exactly are you sure about?”

“The Sûreté,” Moire repeated, “is the French police force. I am the head of a special unit fighting the traffic in . . .”

“. . . drugs.” I completed the sentence.

“Exactement. I have to say that you and your brother seem to have turned up in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I hadn’t been watching you . . .”

“You were at the hotel,” I said. “I saw you outside. You had a camera . . .”

“Is that your hobby?” Tim asked. “Photography?”

Christien Moire stared at Tim through narrow eyes. He obviously hadn’t ever met anyone like him before. “Le Chat Gris has been under surveillance,” he said. “Perhaps I should explain . . .”

“Perhaps you should,” I said.

Moire lit a Gauloise. It’s a funny thing about the French. Not only do they all smoke, but they smoke the most horrible cigarettes in the world. Forget about the health warning on the pack. The smoke from Moire’s cigarette was so thick, you could have printed it on that.

“For some time now,” he began, “we have been aware of a drug-smuggling operation. Somebody has been moving drugs to London . . . using the trains under the Channel. We still don’t know how they’re doing it. We have searched the trains from top to bottom but we have found nothing. Worse still, we do not know who they are.”

“Is there anything you do know?” I asked.

Moire glanced at me with unfriendly eyes. “We know only the code name of the man behind the operation,” he replied.

“The Mad American,” I said.