“Yes. Boris is planning something at London, before going on. I’m not sure what; but the victim is that white-haired man who keeps to himself. Larson, the name is. Boris introduced him to me tonight, using my real name. He’s a nice old man.”
“And a game’s on, eh?” Durant knew Larson by sight—a stiff, bronzed man with white hair and mustache, and shrewd, kindly old eyes, traveling alone.
“Something. Boris wants you to come into the smoking-room, and meet Larson. I think he’s a Dane who’s made a fortune in America and is taking a trip to Denmark—that’s my guess. I suppose Boris means to wring his neck in London by your help and mine.”
“Pleasant prospect,” said Durant.
“What will Lewis say when he learns the truth?”
“He won’t learn it. I’ve arranged—at a little expense. You’ll see in the morning.”
“Then you’re a magician!”
“Borrowed magic—from your beauty.”
She laughed a little and was gone into the darkness. Durant stared out at the gleaming light on the horizon, and thought over the past, back to those Paris days when he, a clerk in an American branch bank, poor, half-starved, struggling for life and health, had seen the beautiful Baroness Glincka come in three times a week to the next window.
And now he knew her, was fighting for her—was a crook for her sake! An odd turn of destiny. An almost forgotten relative dead, a legacy of almost forgotten land in Florida, a trip home—wealth! Then he headed back for Paris, to take his ease where he had starved and fought and sweated. So he had thought—but work had come to him.