Jim shrugged. "All right. But be careful. I'll meet you here to-morrow night. And don't shave."
Harry nodded and put the bills into his pocket while Jim rose again.
"You play the game straight with me," he said, "and I'll put this thing right, even if——"
He paused suddenly in the doorway, his sentence unfinished, for just in front of him stood a very handsome girl, who had abandoned her companion and stood, both hands outstretched, in greeting.
"'Arry 'Orton," she was saying joyously in broken English. "You don seem to know me. It is I—Piquette."
The name Quinlevin had spoke in the hospital!
Jim glanced over his shoulder into the shadow where Harry had been, but his brother had disappeared.
CHAPTER V
PIQUETTE
She wore a black velvet toque which bore upon its front two large crimson wings, poised for flight, and they seemed to typify the girl herself—alert, on tip-toe, a bird of passage. She had a nose very slightly retroussé, black eyes, rather small but expressive, with brows and lids skillfully tinted; her figure was graceful, svelte, and extraordinarily well groomed, from her white gloves to the tips of her slender shiny boots, and seemed out of place in the shadows of these murky surroundings. For the rest, she was mischievous, tingling with vitality and joyous at this unexpected meeting.