She spoke a few words of touching gratitude, then she rose, and with a gesture of exquisite grace she extracted a hundred-franc note from her reticule and placed it upon my desk.
“Mademoiselle,” I protested with splendid dignity, “I have done nothing as yet.”
“Ah! but you will, Monsieur,” she entreated in accents that completed my subjugation to her charms. “Besides, you do not know me! How could I expect you to work for me and not to know if, in the end, I should repay you for all your trouble? I pray you to take this small sum without demur. Mr. Farewell keeps me well supplied with pocket money. There will be another hundred for you when you place the papers in my hands.”
I bowed to her, and, having once more assured her of my unswerving loyalty to her interests, I accompanied her to the door, and anon saw her graceful figure slowly descend the stairs and then disappear along the corridor.
Then I went back to my room, and was only just in time to catch Theodore calmly pocketing the hundred-franc note which my fair client had left on the table. I secured the note and I didn’t give him a black eye, for it was no use putting him in a bad temper when there was so much to do.
2.
That very same evening I interviewed the concierge at No. 65 Rue des Pyramides. From him I learned that Mr. Farewell lived on a very small income on the top floor of the house, that his household consisted of a housekeeper who cooked and did the work of the apartment for him, and an odd-job man who came every morning to clean boots, knives, draw water and carry up fuel from below. I also learned that there was a good deal of gossip in the house anent the presence in Mr. Farewell’s bachelor establishment of a young and beautiful girl, whom he tried to keep a virtual prisoner under his eye.
The next morning, dressed in a shabby blouse, alpaca cap, and trousers frayed out round the ankles, I—Hector Ratichon, the confidant of kings—was lounging under the porte-cochere of No. 65 Rue des Pyramides. I was watching the movements of a man, similarly attired to myself, as he crossed and recrossed the courtyard to draw water from the well or to fetch wood from one of the sheds, and then disappeared up the main staircase.
A casual, tactful inquiry of the concierge assured me that that man was indeed in the employ of Mr. Farewell.
I waited as patiently and inconspicuously as I could, and at ten o’clock I saw that my man had obviously finished his work for the morning and had finally come down the stairs ready to go home. I followed him.