the fourth
the only change in the situation was scarcely a reassuring one. He
became aware that he was being watched.

There was no particular secrecy about it. Even in the hotel itself some
one was always on his heels. The absence of any attempt at concealment
convinced him that it was the authorized police who had thus suddenly
showed their interest in him. The suspicion was soon to be confirmed.
The manager called him on the fourth morning into his private office.

"Monsieur will pardon me, I trust," he said, "if I take the liberty of
asking him a question."

"Certainly!" Duncombe answered. "Go ahead!"

"Monsieur is aware that he has been placed under the surveillance of the
police?"

"The fact," Duncombe said, "has been borne in upon me during the last
few hours. What of it?"

The manager coughed.

"This is a cosmopolitan hotel, Sir George," he said, "and we make no
pretence at ultra-exclusiveness, but we do not care to see the police on
the premises."

"Neither do I," Duncombe answered. "Can you suggest how we may get rid
of them?"

"Monsieur does not quite understand," the manager said smoothly.
"Clearly he has done something to bring him under the suspicion of the
law. Under these circumstances it would be more agreeable to the
management of the hotel if Monsieur would depart."

Duncombe did not wish to depart. The hotel at which Phyllis Poynton's
trunks were still awaiting her return was the hotel at which he wished
to stay.

"Look here, Monsieur Huber," he said. "I give you my word of honor that
I have broken no law, nor engaged in any criminal action whatever since
I came to Paris. This game of having me watched is simply a piece of
bluff. I have done nothing except make inquiries in different quarters
respecting those two young English people who are still missing. In
doing this I seem to have run up against what is nothing more nor less
than a disgraceful conspiracy. Every hand is against me. Instead of
helping me to discover them, the police seem only anxious to cover up
the tracks of those young people."

The manager looked down at his desk.

"We hotel-keepers," he said, "are very much in the hands of the police.
We cannot judge between them and the people whom they treat as suspected
persons. I know very well, Sir George, that you are a person of
respectability and character, but if the police choose to think
otherwise I must adapt my views to theirs. I am sorry, but we must
really ask