Before saying a word Sir Tancred showed him a twenty-franc piece; and the gendarme spoke, he was even voluble.

Yes, he had seen a carriage, rather more than an hour before.
It had galloped through the town.

It carried fever-patients for the hospital at Genoa, ill of the bubonic plague.

The police and the custom-house officials had been warned by wire from Monte Carlo and Genoa not to delay it.

There were relays of horses every twenty miles to Genoa: the wires had said so.
"That was how they crossed the frontier, was it?
What fools these officials are!" said Sir Tancred, and he gave the gendarme his Napoleon: and bade him tell his superior officer that the police had been humbugged.
"If they're really bound for Genoa, we can catch them and to spare--bar accidents," said Tinker cheerfully.