"Then you do think Mr. Albert Redmayne is in danger?"
"I don't think about it. I know he is. But as this mystery has only just let loose on him and he's got his weather eye lifting, it will be all right, I hope, for a few hours. Meantime we arrive."
He took another pinch of snuff and picked up the Times. "Will you lunch with me here in the grillroom at two o'clock?"
"With pleasure, Mr. Ganns."
"Right. And telegraph, right now, that we hope to get off in a week."
Some hours later they met again and over a steak and green peas Brendon reported that the boat train left Victoria at eleven and that the Rapide would start from Paris on the following morning at half past six.
"We reach Bevano some time after noon next day," he said, "and can either go on to Milan and then come back to Como and travel by boat to Menaggio, where Mr. Redmayne lives, or else leave the train at Bevano, take steamer on Maggiore, cross to Lugano, and cross again to Como. That way we land right at Menaggio. There's not much in it for time."
"We'll go that way, then, and I'll see the Lakes."
Peter Ganns spoke little while he partook of a light meal. He picked a fried sole and drank two glasses of white wine. Then he ate a dish of green peas and compared their virtues with green corn. He enjoyed the spectacle of Brendon's hearty appetite and bewailed his inability to join him in red meat and a pint of Burton.
"Lucky dog," he said. "When I was young I did the like. I love food. You need never fear any rough stuff in business as long as you can eat beef and drink beer. But nowadays, I don't go into the rough stuff—too old and fat."