an embarrassing choice! I took a note of all that suited, and
promised to return after I had made a round of the shipping
offices,--another jaunt for Tiler, and a pretty plain indication of
what was in my mind.

After full inquiry I decided in favour of Tripoli, and for several
reasons. A steamer offered in a couple of days, Sunday, just when I
wanted it, although it was by no means my intention to go to Tripoli
myself. That it was somewhat out of the way, neither easy to reach nor
to leave, as the steamers came and went rarely, served my purpose
well. If I could only inveigle my tormentors into the trap, they might
be caught there longer than they liked.

Accordingly, I secured a good cabin on board the S.S. _Oasis_ of the
Transatlantique, leaving Marseilles for Tripoli at 8 A.M. the
following Sunday, and paid the necessary deposit on the passage
ticket.

It was a satisfaction to me to see my "shadow's" _fiacre_ draw up at
the door soon after I left, and Mr. Ludovic Tiler enter the office. I
made no doubt he would contrive, very cleverly as he thought, to find
out exactly what I had been doing with regard to the _Oasis_.

Later in the day, out of mere curiosity, I walked down to the offices
to ask a trivial question about my baggage. It was easy to turn the
talk to other matters connected with the voyage and my fellow
passengers.

Several other cabins had been engaged, two of them in the name of
Ludovic Tiler.

There was nothing left for me but to bide my time. I telegraphed that
evening to Colonel Annesley, reporting myself, so to speak, and
counted upon hearing his whereabouts in reply next day.

Tiler did not show up nor trouble me, nor did I concern myself about
him. We were really waiting for each other, and we knew enough of each
other's plans to bide in tranquil expectation of what we thought must
certainly follow. When I was at dinner in the hotel restaurant he
calmly came into the room, merely to pass his eye over me as it were,
and I took it so much as a matter of course that I looked up, and felt
half-inclined to give him a friendly nod. We were like duellists
saluting each other before we crossed swords, each relying upon his
own superior skill.

[_We need not reproduce in detail the rest of the matters set forth by
Lady Claire Standish while she and the detective watched each other
at Marseilles. Tiler, on the Saturday morning, made it plain, from
his arrogance and self-sufficient air as he wal