g?"

"At the Hermitage, as usual."

"H'm."

"Anybody with him?"

"Nobody we know."

"Have you spoken to Pierrette?"

"Yes. But, curiously enough, she denied all knowledge of him."

"Ah! Then it is as I suspected!" Blythe said. "We'll have to be
careful--confoundedly careful; otherwise we shall be given away."

"By whom?"

"By our enemies," was his ambiguous response. "Did Regnier tell you
anything about the girl?"

"He warned me to have nothing whatever to do with her."

"Exactly. Just as I thought. It was to his interests to do so. We must
wire at once to Bindo."

While we were talking, however, a thin, rather well-dressed, long-nosed
Frenchman, in a brown suit and grey suede gloves, entered, and sat at a
table near. He was not thirty, but about him was the unmistakable air of
the _bon viveur_.

At his entry we broke off our conversation and spoke of other things.
Neither of us desired the presence of a stranger in our vicinity.

Presently, after the lapse of ten minutes, we paid, rose, and left the
cafe.

"Who was that fellow?" I asked Sir Charles, as we walked through the
narrow street down to the quay.

"Couldn't make him out," was my friend's reply. "Looks very suspiciously
like an agent of police."

"That's just my opinion," I said anxiously. "We must be careful--very
careful."

"Yes. We mustn't meet again unless absolutely necessary. I'm just going
up the hill to the post-office to send a cipher message to Bindo. He
ought to be here at once. Good-bye."

And he turned the corner and left me.

The sudden appearance of the long-nosed person puzzled me greatly.

Was it possible that we had fallen beneath the active surveillance of
the Surete?

VII

ON DANGEROUS GROUND

I don't think that in the whole course of my adventurous career as
chauffeur to Count Bindo di Ferraris, alias Mr. Charles Bellingham, I
spent such an anxious few days as I did during the week following my
meeting with the redoubtable Sir Charles Blythe.

On several occasions when I called at the Bristol I saw him sitting in
the garden with Madame and Mademoiselle, doing the amiable, at which he
was an adept. He was essentially a ladies' man, and the very women who
lost their diamonds recounted to him their loss and received his
assistance and sympathy.

Of course, on the occasions I met him either at Beaulieu, on the
Promenade des Anglais, or in the Rooms, I never acknowledged
acquaintance with him. More than on