“The parlor looks a little ominous,” said John
Bruce softly to himself. “I wonder how far it is to the spider's dining room?”
He halted as he reached the vehicle.
“I'm bound for Persia, I believe,” he suggested pleasantly to the chauffeur.
The chauffeur leaned out, and John Bruce was conscious that he was undergoing a critical inspection. In turn he looked at the chauffeur, but there was very little light. The car seemed to have chosen a spot as little disturbed by the rays of the street lamps as possible, and he gained but a vague impression of a red, weather-beaten face, clean shaved, with shaggy brows under grizzled hair, the whole topped by an equally weather-beaten felt hat of nondescript shape and color.
The inspection, on the chauffeur's part at least, appeared to be satisfactory.
“Yes, sir,” said the man. “Step in, sir, please.”
The door swung open—just how, John Bruce could not have explained. He stepped briskly into the car—only to draw back instinctively as he found it already occupied. But the door had closed behind him. It was inky black in the interior now with the door shut. The car was jolting into motion.
“Pardon me!” said John Bruce a little grimly, and sat down on the back seat.
A woman! He had just been able to make out a woman's form as he had stepped in. It was clever—damned clever! Of both the exquisite Monsieur Henri de Lavergne and the money-lending spider at the other end of this pleasant little jaunt into unexplored Persia! A woman in it—a luring, painted, fair and winsome damsel, no doubt—to make the usurious pill of illegal interest a little sweeter! Oh, yes, he quite understood now that warning to beware of the conductor!