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He had a monocle in his right eye which he kept adjusting nervously. His face was deeply marked and lined with heavy bluish pouches under the eyes. With a swift glance he sized up Locuty as Metenier rose. "This is the gentleman whom I mentioned," he said. "He understands his mission?" De la Meuse asked. "Yes," said Locuty. "You will teach me how to make them?" De la Meuse nodded.
He was an engineer at the huge Michelin Tire Works at Clermont-Ferrand where Metenier was an important official. The industrialist introduced the girl merely as "my friend" without mentioning her name. With the exception of two couples having a late breakfast in the gray marble room, which they could see from their table, the three were alone. "Shall we have a bottle of Bordeaux?" asked Metenier.
Metenier drove Locuty to an office building where he introduced him to a man he called "Leon" actually Alfred Macon, concierge of a building which Metenier and others used as headquarters for their activities. Within a few moments the door of an adjacent room opened and Jean Adolphe Moreau de la Meuse, aristocrat and leading French industrialist, came in.
"It will be a time bomb which must be set for ten o'clock tomorrow night. There will be nobody in the building at that time, so no one will be hurt." An hour later Locuty, who had made both bombs and set the timing devices, wrapped them into two neat packages. Metenier took him to the General Confederation of French Employers' Building in the Rue de Presbourg.
In accordance with instructions he left one of the packages with the concierge, after which Metenier took him to the Ironmasters' Association headquarters on the Rue Boissiere, where Locuty left the second package. On the evening of September 11, the General Confederation of French Employers was scheduled to hold a meeting in their building.
When the early lunch was over and the brandy had been set before them, Metenier studied his glass thoughtfully and glanced at the two portly men who had entered the brown dining room and sat some tables away. From the snatches of conversation the three gathered that one was a literary critic and the other a publisher.
They were discussing a thrilling detective story just published which the critic insisted was too fantastic. Metenier said to Locuty: "You will have to make two bombs. I will take you to a very important man in our organization, a power in France. He will personally give you the material and show you how to make them. Then I will take you to the places where you will leave them.
The one who had invited her, François Metenier, a well-known French engineer and industrialist, powerfully built, with sharp eyes, dark hair, and a suave self-assured manner, rose at her approach, smiling at her embarrassment. The other man, considerably younger, was M. Locuty, a stocky, bushy haired man with square jaws and heavy tortoise-shell eyeglasses.
I do not want them to see me." In low tones, they discussed the bombing of two places. Metenier, a pillar of the church, highly respected in his community and well-known throughout France, cautioned them as they left.
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