, he explained, in
the old tall bicycle days, the days of bad tracks, when every racing
cyclist carried cinder scars on his face from numerous accidents. He
pointed to a blue mark on his forehead, which, he told us, was a track
scar, and described a bad fall that had cost him two teeth, and broken
others. The gaps among his teeth were plain to see as he smiled.

Presently the waiter brought dessert, and the young man opposite took an
apple. Nut-crackers and a fruit-knife lay on our side of the stand, and
Hewitt turned the stand to offer him the knife.

"No, thanks," he said; "I only polish a good apple, never peel it. It's a
mistake, except with thick-skinned foreign ones."

And he began to munch the apple as only a boy or a healthy athlete can.
Presently he turned his head to order coffee. The waiter's back was
turned, and he had to be called twice. To my unutterable amazement Hewitt
reached swiftly across the table, snatched the half-eaten apple from the
young man's plate and pocketed it, gazing immediately, with an abstracted
air, at a painted Cupid on the ceiling.

Our neighbor turned again, looked doubtfully at his plate and the
table-cloth about it, and then shot a keen glance in the direction of
Hewitt. He said nothing, however, but took his coffee and his bill,
deliberately drank the former, gazing quietly at Hewitt as he did it, paid
the latter, and left.

Immediately Hewitt was on his feet and, taking an umbrella, which stood
near, followed. Just as he reached the door he met our late neighbor, who
had turned suddenly back.

"Your umbrella, I think?" Hewitt asked, offering it.

"Yes, thanks." But the man's eye had more than its former hardness, and
his jaw muscles tightened as I looked. He turned and went. Hewitt came
back to me. "Pay the bill," he said, "and go back to your rooms; I will
come on later. I must follow this man--it's the Foggatt case." As he went
out I heard a cab rattle away, and immediately after it another.

I paid the bill and went home. It was ten o'clock before Hewitt turned up,
calling in at his office below on his way up to me.

"Mr. Sidney Mason," he said, "is the gentleman the police will be wanting
to-morrow, I expect, for the Foggatt murder. He is as smart a man as I
remember ever meeting, and has done me rather neatly twice this evening."

"You mean the man we sat opposite at Luzatti's, of course?"

"Yes, I got his name, of course, from the reverse of that gold medal he