"He is in London. I have never seen him and I must certainly do so."
"In London?" I cried, a dozen conflicting thoughts crowding and crushing into my mind.
"... It is the reason that we leave London to-night."
Then he had shut the door on me and was gone. I had known him less than two hours. I was a man accustomed to rule, whose whole life was spent in giving orders, and I lay down on my bed like a lamb without a further question. And, what is more, I did exactly as Mr. Danjuro had said. I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
At a little after eight Mr. Danjuro and myself sat at dinner at the Restaurant Mille Colonnes. Most people know that expensive and luxurious home of epicures, with Nicholas, its stout and arrogant proprietor, and M. Dulac, its famous chef.
We sat in the south gallery, at the extreme end, against the wall. The electric lights in the roof above us had been extinguished, and our table was lighted by candles in red shades. Indeed, we sat in a sort of darkness which must have made us almost invisible to the other diners, most of whom sat in the longer arm of the gallery at right angles to our own.
We, on the contrary, could see everything. We could look over the gilded rail into the hall of the restaurant below, and every detail of the gallery on our own level was clear and distinct, though there was such a towering erection of flowers and ferns in the centre of our table that it obscured what would otherwise have been a perfect view.
I wore a low, turned-down collar and a dark flannel suit. Danjuro, also, had changed his clothes, and, in some real but indefinite way, his appearance. He wore a flannel suit and a straw hat, and also a necktie which I suddenly spotted as that of my old college, Christ Church, Oxford. But the extraordinary thing about him was that he seemed fifteen years younger.
He had promised to explain at the "Mille Colonnes." As we began upon the salted prawns and the stuffed olives he did so.