"Well, my dear boy! I have to thank you for an excellent dinner and a most interesting evening. Pity to break it up so early. Still, les affaires--you know! Sorry you're not going my way--but that's a handsome taxi you've drawn. What's its number--eh?"

"Haven't the faintest notion," a British voice drawled in response.

"Never fret about a taxi's number until it has run over me."

"Great mistake," Bannon rejoined cheerfully. "Always take the number before entering. Then, if anything happens ... However, that's a good-looking chap at the wheel--doesn't look as if he'd run you into any trouble."

"Oh, I fancy not," said the Englishman, bored.

"Well, you never can tell. The number's on the lamp. Make a note of it and be on the safe side. Or trust me--I never forget numbers."

With this speech Bannon ranged alongside Lanyard and looked him over, keenly malicious enjoyment gleaming in his evil old eyes.

"You are an honest-looking chap," he observed with a mocking smile but in a tone of the most inoffensive admiration--"honest and--ah--what shall I say?--what's the word we're all using now-a-days?--efficient!

Honest and efficient-looking, capable of better things, or I'm no judge! Forgive an old man's candour, my friend--and take good care of our British cousin here. He doesn't know his way around Paris very well. Still, I feel confident he'll come to no harm in _your_ company.

Here's a franc for you." With matchless effrontery, he produced a coin from the pocket of his fur-lined coat.

Unhesitatingly, permitting no expression to colour his features, Lanyard extended his palm, received the money, dropped it into his own pocket, and carried two fingers to the visor of his cap.

"Merci, monsieur," he said evenly.

"Ah, that's the right spirit!" the deep voice jeered. "Never be above your station, my man--never hesitate to take a tip! Here, I'll give you another, gratis: get out of this business: you're too good for it.

Don't ask me how I know; I can tell by your face--h.e.l.lo! Why do you turn down the flag? You haven't started yet!"

"Conversation goes up on the clock," Lanyard replied stolidly in French. He turned and faced Bannon squarely, loosing a glance of venomous hatred into the other's eyes. "The longer I have to stop here listening to your senile monologue, the more you'll have to pay. What address, please?" he added, turning back to get a glimpse of his pa.s.senger.

"Hotel Astoria," the porter supplied.

"Very good."

The porter closed the door.

"But remember my advice," Bannon counselled coolly, stepping back and waving his hand to the man in the cab. "Good night."

Lanyard took his car smartly away from the curb, wheeled round the corner into the boulevard des Capucines, and toward the rue Royale.

He had gone but a block when the window at his back was lowered and his fare observed pleasantly:

"That you, Lanyard?"

The adventurer hesitated an instant; then, without looking round, responded:

"Wertheimer, eh?"

"Right-O! The old man had me puzzled for a minute with his silly chaffing. Stupid of me, too, because we'd just been talking about you."

"Had you, though!"

"Rather. Hadn't you better take me where we can have a quiet little talk?"

"I'm not conscious of the necessity--"

"Oh, I say!" Wertheimer protested amiably--"don't be shirty, old top.

Give a chap a chance. Besides, I have a bit of news from Antwerp that I guarantee will interest you."

"Antwerp?" Lanyard iterated, mystified.

"Antwerp, where the ships sail from," Wertheimer laughed: "not Amsterdam, where the diamonds flock together, as you may know."

"I don't follow you, I'm afraid."

"I shan't elucidate until we're under cover."

"All right. Where shall I take you?"

"Any quiet cafe will do. You must know one--"

"Thanks--no," said Lanyard dryly. "If I must confabulate with gentlemen of your kidney, I prefer to keep it dark. Even dressed as I am, I might be recognized, you know."

But it was evident that Wertheimer didn't mean to permit himself to be ruffled.

"Then will my modest diggings do?" he suggested pleasantly. "I've taken a suite in the rue Vernet, just back of the Hotel Astoria, where we can be as private as you please, if you've no objection."

"None whatever."

Wertheimer gave him the number and replaced the window....

His rooms in the rue Vernet proved to be a small ground-floor apartment with private entrance to the street.

"Took the tip from you," he told Lanyard as he unlocked the door. "I daresay you'd be glad to get back to that rez-de-chaussee of yours.

Ripping place, that.... By the way--judging from your apparently robust state of health, you haven't been trying to live at home of late."

"Indeed?"

"Indeed yes, monsieur! If I may presume to advise--I'd pull wide of the rue Roget for a while--for as long, at least, as you remain in your present intractable temper."

"Daresay you're right," Lanyard a.s.sented carelessly, following, as Wertheimer turned up the lights, into a modest salon cosily furnished.

"You live here alone, I understand?"

"Quite: make yourself perfectly at ease; n.o.body can hear us. And," the Englishman added with a laugh, "do forget your pistol, Mr. Lanyard. I'm not Popinot, nor is this Troyon's."

"Still," Lanyard countered, "you've just been dining with Bannon."

Wertheimer laughed easily. "Had me there!" he admitted, unabashed. "I take it you know a bit more about the Old Man than you did a week ago?"

"Perhaps."

"But sit down: take that chair there, which commands both doors, if you don't trust me."

"Do you think I ought to?"