But for the next few days he avoided Cheveney like the plague.
The same night he met Meddoes and Drummond together, the latter over from Paris on a week’s leave from the Embassy.
“Odd thing,” Meddoes remarked, “we were just talking about the Pellissier girl. Drummond was telling me about the way old Ferringhall rounded upon them all at the club.”
“Sounds interesting,” Ennison remarked. “May I hear?”
“It really isn’t much to tell,” Drummond answered. “You know what a fearful old prig Ferringhall is, always goes about as though the whole world were watching him? We tried to show him around Paris, but he wouldn’t have any of it. Talked about his years, his position and his constituents, and always sneaked off back to his hotel just when the fun was going to begin. Well one night, some of us saw him, or thought we saw him, at a café dining with ‘Alcide,’—as a matter of fact, it seems that it was her sister. He came into the club next day, and of course we went for him thick. Jove, he didn’t take to it kindly, I can tell you. Stood on his dignity and shut us up in great style. It seems that he was a sort of family friend of the Pellissiers, and it was the artist sister whom he was with. The joke of it is that he’s married to her now, and cuts me dead.”
“I suppose,” Ennison said, “the likeness between the sisters must be rather exceptional?”
“I never saw the goody-goody one close to, so I can’t say,” Drummond answered. “Certainly I was a little way off at the café, and she had a hat and veil on, but I could have sworn that it was ‘Alcide.’”
“Is ‘Alcide’ still in Paris?” Ennison asked.