"But how can you have any business with me if you don't know my name? You are fooling me, and I am going—"
"Pray, grant me a hearing. I was at the door of the restaurant when you came in, and I asked the door-porter if you had not come here one day, under circumstances which he was bound to remember. He replied in the affirmative, so I followed you in, wondering how I should manage to enter into conversation with you. Pray, believe that I should not have watched for your coming here during a whole fortnight, if mere idle curiosity had prompted my desire to make your acquaintance."
"You dare to admit that you have been playing the spy on me for a fortnight?"
"I was not playing the spy, I merely told the doorkeeper that I would give him two louis if he would point out to me a gentleman who came here one morning in a cab to lunch with a party in a private room. He was anxious to secure the promised reward, of course, but you did not make your appearance until to-night."
"Well, confine yourself to facts. What do you want with me?"
"Before explaining myself more fully, I wish to satisfy myself that I am not making a mistake. So allow me, sir, to ask you one question, only one. Did you not, on Wednesday, the 9th of April, pass through the Place du Carrousel in a cab which turned into the Rue de Rivoli?"
"I have passed through the Place du Carrousel hundreds of times in my life," said Adhémar, "but I am not at all sure that I passed through it on the day you mention. I have no reason to recollect such an insignificant occurrence."
"You came here to lunch with some friends. You were not alone in the cab—"
"Well, say there were two of us, but what difference can that make to you and why have you taken so much trouble to look me up?"
"It did, indeed, cost me a deal of trouble. My only clue was the number of the cab, so I first tried to find the driver and ultimately succeeded. He remembered you very well on account of the liberal gratuity you gave him on dismissing him, and he told me he had set you and your friend down outside the Lion d'Or. I then spoke to the door-porter of the restaurant, who said that he knew you by sight, but that he was unable to give me your name or address; and the head waiter either could not or would not tell me anything. I again applied to the door-porter, giving him two louis, and promising him two more. He knew that you dined here sometimes, and he promised to point you out to me the first time you came if I had patience enough to wait for you every day between seven and eight. I accepted his offer, and by waiting patiently, I have at last accomplished my object."