that the arrival of the taxi-cab in our wake was a coincidence!

We drank our coffee, talking of the raid and of the O'Farrells, and--as
always--of Jim. Then Father Beckett noticed that his wife was pale. "She
looks as if she needed bed a good sight more than that little girl
did," he said in the simple, homely way I've learned to love.

Presently we had all bidden each other good-night, even Brian and I.
Then--in my own room--I was free to take that folded bit of paper from
my pocket.

CHAPTER X

To my surprise, there were only three lines, scribbled in pencil.

"Come to the _salon_ for a talk when the rest of your party have gone to
bed. I'll be waiting, and won't keep you long."

"Impudent brute!" I said out aloud. But a moment later I had decided to
keep the appointment and learn the worst. Needs must, when the devil
drives!--if you're in the power of the devil. I was. And, alas! through
my fault, so was Brian. After going so far, I could not afford to be
thrown back without a struggle; and I went downstairs prepared to fight.

It was not yet late; only a few minutes after ten o'clock; and though
the Becketts and Brian were on the road to sleep, the hotel was awake,
and even lively in its wakefulness. The door of the public _salon_ stood
open, and the electric light had come on again. At the table, in the
centre of the room, sat Mr. Julian O'Farrell, _alias_ Giulio di Napoli,
conspicuously interested in an illustrated paper. He jumped up at sight
of me, and smiled a brilliant smile of welcome, but did not speak. A
sudden, obstinate determination seized me to thwart him, if he meant to
force the first move upon me. I bowed coolly, as one acknowledges the
existence of an hotel acquaintance, and passing to the other end of the
long table, picked up a _Je Sais Tout_ of a date two years before the
war.

I did not sit down, but assumed the air of hovering for a moment on my
way elsewhere. This manoeuvre kept the enemy on his feet; and as the
cheap but stately clock on the mantel ticked out second after second, I
felt nervously inclined to laugh, despite the seriousness of my
situation. I bit my lip hard to frighten away a smile that would have
spoilt everything. "If it goes on like this for an hour," I said to
myself, "I won't open my mouth!"

Into the midst of this vow broke an explosion of laughter that made me
start as if it announced a new bombardment. I looked up involuntarily,
and met the dark Ita