"No, signora," replied the boy, flashing his teeth with a smile. "I am from San Remo, but I have come to live in Monte Carlo to sell vegetables for my uncle, and he told me I should find a lodging here."
She looked at him dubiously.
"I have one room which you could have, boy," she said, "though I do not like Italians. You must pay me a franc a night, and your donkey can go into the shed of my brother-in-law up the hill."
She led the way down a flight of ancient stairs and showed him a tiny room overlooking the valley.
"I have one other man who lives here," she said. "An old one, who sleeps all day and goes out all night. But he is a very respectable man," she added in defence of her client.
"Where does he sleep?" asked the boy.
"There!" The woman pointed to a room on the opposite side of the narrow landing. "He has just come in, I can hear him." She listened.
"Will madame get me change for this?" The boy produced a fifty-franc note, and the woman's eyebrows rose.
"Such wealth!" she said good-naturedly. "I did not think that a little boy like you could have such money."
She bustled upstairs to her own room, leaving the boy alone. He waited until her heavy footsteps sounded overhead, and then gently he tried the door of the other lodger. Mr. Jaggs had not yet bolted the door, and the spy pushed it open and looked. What he saw satisfied him, for he pulled the door tight again, and as the footfall of old Jaggs came nearer the door, the donkey-boy flew upstairs with extraordinary rapidity.