"In fact, Raoul?" asked Sir Stanley.
The colonel nodded, and for a few moments Sir Stanley communed with his well-kept finger-nails.
"I don't think it will do any harm if I tell you that that is my theory also, Colonel Boundary," he said, "and, giving confidence for confidence, would you have any objection to telling me whether Raoul is one of your—er—business associates?"
There was just the slightest shade of irony in the last two words, but the colonel preferred to ignore it.
"I'm very glad you asked me that question, sir," he said with a sigh, so palpably a sigh of relief that the recording angel might be excused if he were deceived. "I have never seen Raoul before. In fact, my knowledge of Frenchmen is a very small one. I do very little business in France, and I certainly do no business at all with men of that class."
"What class?" asked the other quickly.
The colonel shrugged his big shoulders.
"I am only going on what the newspapers say," he said. "They suggest that this man is an apache."
"You do not know him?" asked Sir Stanley after a pause.