"Name?" asked T. B. carelessly.
The proprietor shrugged his shoulders.
"I do not enquire the name of my patrons," he said, "but I understand that it is to be the young Lord Carleby."
The name told T. B. nothing.
"Well," he said easily, "I will take a table in the restaurant. I do not wish to interrupt a tête-à-tête."
"Oh, it is not Carleby to-night," the proprietor hastened to assure him. "I think mamzelle would prefer that it was—not; it is a stranger."
T. B. sauntered into the brilliantly lighted room, having handed his hat and coat to a waiter. He found a deserted table. Luck was with him to an extraordinary extent; that Sir George should have chosen Meggioli's was the greatest good fortune of all.
At that time Count Menshikoff was paying one of his visits to England. The master of the St. Petersburg secret police was a responsibility. For his protection it was necessary that a small army of men should be detailed, and since Meggioli's was the restaurant he favoured, at least one man of the Criminal Investigation Department was permanently employed at that establishment.
T. B. called a waiter, and the man came swiftly. He had a large white face, big unwinking black eyes, and heavy bushy eyebrows, that stamped his face as one out of the common. His name—which is unimportant—was Vellair, and foreign notabilities his specialty.
"Soup—consommé, crème de——"