“No, certainly,” she replied readily. “It is a little farther. The numbers are from the other end. But we are there. Ecco!”
She stopped at a gate and opened it, still guiding him. They passed into a garden, moist and sweet-scented with the distillate odours of a dewy evening. As she turned to relatch the gate the blind man endeavoured politely to anticipate her. Between them his hat fell to the ground.
“My clumsiness,” he apologized, recovering it from the step. “My old impulses and my present helplessness, alas, Madame Ferraja!”
“One learns prudence by experience,” said Madame sagely. She was scarcely to know, poor lady, that even as she uttered this trite aphorism, under cover of darkness and his hat, Mr Carrados had just ruined his signet ring by blazoning a golden “7” upon her garden step to establish its identity if need be. A cul-de-sac that numbered from the closed end seemed to demand some investigation.
“Seldom,” he replied to her remark. “One goes on taking risks. So we are there?”
Madame Ferraja had opened the front door with a latchkey. She dropped the latch and led Carrados forward along the narrow hall. The room they entered was at the back of the house, and from the position of the road it therefore overlooked the park. Again the door was locked behind them.
“The celebrated Mr Carrados!” announced Madame Ferraja, with a sparkle of triumph in her voice. She waved her hand towards a lean, dark man who had stood beside the door as they entered. “My husband.”
“Beneath our poor roof in the most fraternal manner,” commented the dark man, in the same derisive spirit. “But it is wonderful.”
“The even more celebrated Monsieur Dompierre, unless I am mistaken?” retorted Carrados blandly. “I bow on our first real meeting.”
“You knew!” exclaimed the Dompierre of the earlier incident incredulously. “Stoker, you were right and I owe you a hundred lire. Who recognized you, Nina?”