II
One evening, several months later, McAllister and a party of friends dropped into Rector's after the theatre for a caviare sandwich before turning in. The hostelry, as usual, was in a blaze of light and crowded, but after waiting for a few moments they were given a table just vacated by a party of four. McAllister, having given their order, noticed a couple seated directly in his line of vision who instantly challenged his attention. The girl was ordinary—slender, dark-haired, sharp-featured, and clad in a scarlet costume trimmed with ermine—obviously an actress or vaudeville "artist." It was her companion, however, that caused McAllister to readjust his monocle. Curious! Where had he seen that face? It was that of a heavy man of approximately sixty, benign, smooth-shaven, full-featured, and with an expanse of broad white forehead, the centre of which was marked in a curious fashion by a deep dent like a hole made by dropping a marble into soft putty. It gave him the appearance of having had a third eye, now extinct. It fascinated McAllister. He was sure he had met the old fellow somewhere—he couldn't just place where. But that hole in the forehead—yes, he was certain! Listening abstractedly to his friends' conversation, the clubman studied his neighbor, becoming each moment more convinced that at some time in the past they had been thrown together. Presently the pair arose, and the man helped the woman into her ermine coat. The hole in his forehead kept falling in and out of shadow, as McAllister, his eyes fastened upon it like some bird charmed by a reptile, watched the head waiter bow them ostentatiously out.
"Fellows!" exclaimed McAllister, "look at those people just going out; do you know who they are?"
"Why, that's Yvette Vibbert, the comedienne," said Rogers. "She's at Hammerstein's. I don't know her escort. By George! that's a queer thing on his forehead."
McAllister beckoned the head waiter to him.
"Alphonse, who's the gentleman with Mademoiselle Vibbert?"
"Zat is Monsieur Herbert." He pronounced it Erbaire.
"Well, who's Monsieur Erbaire?"
Alphonse elevated his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, protruded his lips, and extended the palms of his hands.
"Alphonse says," remarked McAllister, turning to the group around the table, "Alphonse says that you can search him."