He spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for a friend whom he found at last in the billiard room of one of the smaller clubs to which he belonged. After the usual laconic greetings, he drew him on one side.
“Fred,” he said, “do you remember taking me to dinner at the ‘Ambassador’s,’ one evening last September, to meet a girl who was singing there? Hamilton and Drummond and his lot were with us.”
“Of course,” his friend answered. “La belle ‘Alcide,’ wasn’t it? Annabel Pellissier was her real name. Jolly nice girl, too.”
Ennison nodded.
“I thought I saw her in town to-day,” he said. “Do you happen to know whether she is supposed to be here?”
“Very likely indeed,” Captain Fred Meddoes answered, lighting a cigarette. “I heard that she had chucked her show at the French places and gone in for a reform all round. Sister’s got married to that bounder Ferringhall.”
Ennison took an easy chair.
“What a little brick!” he murmured. “She must have character. It’s no half reform either. What do you know about her, Fred? I am interested.”
Meddoes turned round from the table on which he was practising shots and shrugged his shoulders.