At my first words Gerard’s watery eyes grew wider for an instant and I feared the worst. Some note must have been struck in the echoing cells of his memory. But the next moment reassured me. Out of the many hundred voices with which a waiter’s memory must be stored, how should he be able to identify one which he had heard say scarcely a dozen words? The man’s face was a perfect blank again before I went on.
“Can you tell us if there were any other strangers present?” I asked boldly. And turning to my chief and the Inspector, I explained, “It seems to me just possible that an attempt may have been planned on the life of the Crown Prince, and that this man may have been mistaken for him.”
Tarleton did not reject this suggestion so decidedly as the theory of suicide. I saw a thoughtful expression come on his face, as though he was engaged in trying to adjust the idea with another one previously in his mind. Captain Charles took up the scent quite eagerly.
“Do you know what disguise His Royal Highness was wearing?” he demanded.
The waiter hesitated and then shook his head.
“I had my suspicion, sir, but Madame can tell you for certain.”
The Inspector was satisfied with the answer. But Tarleton’s voice rang out sharply.
“Let us have your suspicion, please.”
Gerard had the air of a man who had committed himself, and regrets it.
“Milor,”—he had been sharp enough to notice the Inspector’s use of a title in addressing the consultant—“I particularly noticed one person who appeared to me a stranger who did not very well know his way about the club, and who appeared to have some business with Monsieur Wilson.”