I did not stop to decide on which of us two his mind was most set—on both perhaps—but pursued my course, entering the restaurant soon after the plain clothes man who appeared to be shadowing us.
Edgar was already seated when I stepped in, but in such a remote and inconspicuous corner that the man who had preceded me had to look covertly in all directions before he espied him. When he did, he took a seat near the door and in a moment was lost to sight behind the newspaper which he had taken from his pocket. There being but one empty seat, I took it. It, too, was near the door.
It seemed a farce to order a meal under these circumstances. But necessity knows no law; it would not do to appear singular. And when my dinner was served, I ate it, happy that I was so placed that I could neither see Edgar nor he me.
The man behind the newspaper, after a considerable wait, turned his attention to the chafing-dish which had been set down before him. Fifteen minutes went by; and then I saw from a sudden movement made by this man that Edgar had risen and was coming my way. Though there was some little disturbance at the time, owing to the breaking up of a party of women all seeking egress through the same narrow passage, it seemed to me that I could hear his footsteps amid all the rest, and waited and watched till I saw our man rise and carelessly add himself to the merry throng.
As he went by me, I was sure that he gave me one quick look which did not hinder me from rising, money in hand, for the waiter who fortunately stood within call.
My back was to the passage through which Edgar must approach, but I was sure that I knew the very instant he went by, and was still more certain that I should not leave the place without another encounter with him, eye to eye.
But this was the time when my foresight failed me. He did not linger as usual to buy a cigar, and so was out of the door a minute or two before me. When I felt the pavement under my feet and paused to look for him in the direction from which he had come, it was to see him going the other way, nonchalantly followed by the man I had set down in my mind as an agent of police.
That he really was such became a surety when they both vanished together around the next corner. Edgar was being shadowed. Was I? I judged not; for on looking back I found the street to be quite clear.
XLII
That night, the vision came for the third time of Orpha gazing intently down at her open palm. It held me; it gripped me till, bathed in sweat, I started up, assured at last of its actual meaning. It was the key, the missing key that was offered to my view in my darling’s grasp. She had been made the repositor of it—or she had found it—and did not know what to do with it. I saw it all, I was practical; above all else, practical.