"You haven't such a thing as a cigarette, I suppose?"
De Floge produced his case at once.
"My profound apologies," he said. "I should have known the one thing you needed most after this regrettable detention."
"To think," Harvey Grimm muttered to himself, "that I stole way down to Letchowiski's and lived in terror of my life, with that rat of a Brodie dogging my footsteps, and all the time I might have fitted up a laboratory and have done my work at home!"
"That would never have done," De Floge objected. "By the decision of the Belgian courts—German inspired, of course, but still according to the law of the land—the whole of the jewels are, in a way, stolen property. Still—it is not the sort of theft that counts."
Harvey Grimm looked out of the windows. There was a queer sort of plaintive happiness dawning in his face.
"It's London all right," he murmured, "the Strand, too.... I never thought to see them again—not till I was an old man, at any rate. Where are we going?"
"The Milan for luncheon," De Floge replied, "where you will meet some friends. I have more wonders to tell you. Will you hear them first or wait till you have had a cocktail?"
"More wonders," Harvey Grimm murmured, "and this is the city which lacks the spirit of adventure! I think," he went on, as they stepped out of the car and walked towards the smoke-room, "you must leave this to me. There is just one concoction—I can't call it by a name. I must speak to Coley. What a cigarette!" he went on. "For six days——"
"I know," De Floge interrupted. "I am sorry. We will try and make up for it."