The man made a swift and rather savage retort in French, shrugging his shoulders, and turning his back on Merry.
Frank smiled to himself.
“In rather bad temper, I take it,” he thought. “Failed to see anything of your game, and so you are impolite.”
Another man came up hurriedly, and spoke to the one who had been loitering by the pillar. It was Brattle. With boldness, Merry addressed his enemy, his face wearing an expression of idiotic anxiety:
“I say, me deah man, cawn’t yer tell me what time Anna Held comes on? I’d like to see her hagain, ye hunderstand.”
“Oh, go to the devil, you wooden-headed chump!” exclaimed Martin Brattle, grasping his companion by the arm and turning toward the door.
“Haw! Very wude cwecher!” gasped Frank, thrusting the head of his cane into his mouth and staring after them.
He did not let them escape, but when they reached the open air he was following them. It was no easy thing to shadow two men along the brilliantly lighted Champs-Élysées, but Frank did the job in a manner that would have done credit to a professional detective; and, after a time, they turned into another street, where it was easier.
Frank followed them a long, long time, for they did not seem to suspect that he was at their heels. Then, to his infinite disgust, he lost them. They seemed to melt into the very stones of the street. Frank was certain they must have entered some place near at hand, but he had not seen them do so, and he could not tell which way to turn.
He was thoroughly aroused.