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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
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