Hotel, smoking a cigar with a tall,
broad-shouldered, red-bearded man who was evidently a foreigner.

He had left Hill Street five minutes after Fetherston, and driven down to
the Savoy, where he had a rendezvous for supper with his friend. That he
was an habitue there was patent from the fact that upon entering the
restaurant, Alphonse, the _maitre d'hotel_, with his plan of the tables
pinned upon the board, greeted him with, "Ah! good evening, Docteur.
Table vingt-six, Docteur Weirmarsh."

The scene was the same as it is every evening at the Savoy; the music,
the smart dresses of the women, the flowers, the shaded lights, the
chatter and the irresponsible laughter of the London world amusing
itself after the stress of war.

You know it--why, therefore, should I describe it? Providing you possess
an evening suit or a low-necked dress, you can always rub shoulders with
the _monde_ and the _demi-monde_ of London at a cost of a few shillings a
head.

The two men had supped and were chatting in French over their coffee and
"triplesec." Gustav, Weirmarsh called his friend, and from his remarks it
was apparent that he was a stranger to London. He was dressed with
elegance. Upon the corner of his white lawn handkerchief a count's
coronet was embroidered, and upon his cigar-case also was a coronet and a
cipher. In his dress-shirt he wore a fine diamond, while upon the little
finger of his left hand glittered a similar stone of great lustre.

The lights were half extinguished, and a porter's voice cried, "Time's
up, ladies and gentlemen!" Those who were not habitues rose and commenced
to file out, but the men and women who came to the restaurant each night
sat undisturbed till the lights went up again and another ten minutes
elapsed before the final request to leave was made.

The pair, seated away in a corner, had been chatting in an undertone when
they were compelled to rise. Thereupon the doctor insisted that his
friend, whose name was Gustav Heureux, should accompany him home. So
twenty minutes later they alighted from a taxi-cab in the Vauxhall Bridge
Road, and entered the shabby little room wherein Weirmarsh schemed and
plotted.

The doctor produced from a cupboard some cognac and soda and a couple of
glasses, and when they had lit cigars they sat down to resume their chat.

Alone there, the doctor spoke in English.

"You see," he explained, "it is a matter of the greatest importance--if
we make this coup we ca