Forsyth took another cab and bade his man keep the first cab in sight. Before long he perceived that the lady was in truth going to Bond Street, and presently he had the satisfaction of seeing her discharge her cab and skip lightly into the shop of a fashionable modiste in that thoroughfare. His complacence was a little marred by uncertainty whether she had observed him or not, but from the quick turn of her head as she crossed the pavement he was rather inclined to think that she had.
"It doesn't matter, really," he reflected. "She knows that we suspect her complicity, or she wouldn't have tried to blind her trail to the hotel by driving here first. Strange, though, that, suspecting that, she should have taken so much trouble."
He ordered his driver to take him to the Hotel Cecil, and at the same time to keep a lookout to see whether they in turn were being followed by the lady whom they had just run to ground. But when he was set down at the main entrance of the great twelve-storied palace he received the assurance that nothing of the sort had occurred.
"Not so keen after you, sir, as you was after her," ejaculated the smart cabman as he whipped up and wheeled round, dissatisfied, after the manner of his kind, with the extra half-crown he had received for his "shadowing job."
Forsyth shuddered. "Keen, by George!" he murmured ruefully. "If only my devotion to poor old Charley could have led me into paths untrodden by Mrs. Talmage Eglinton my task would have been a lighter one."
He went into the bureau and inquired if Mr. Clinton Ziegler was in, receiving the stereotyped reply that Mr. Ziegler was always in, being an invalid. Whereupon he sent up his card, first penciling thereon the words, "Private Secretary to the Duke of Beaumanoir."
The bell-boy who took up the card reappeared almost immediately, flying down the grand staircase three steps at a time.
"Please to come up at once, sir, the gentleman said," was the boy's urgent appeal.
Forsyth, with a feeling of having "burned his ships," obeyed with equal alacrity, and was shown into the suite made memorable by the raid of his Highness the Thakore of Bhurtnagur, otherwise General Sadgrove's faithful orderly, Azimoolah Khan. He noticed in passing in that the door of the next suite—that of Mrs. Talmage Eglinton—was slightly ajar, but his attention was immediately claimed by the welcome he received in Mr. Ziegler's apartments. Just inside the door he was met by a tall, bold-eyed man whom, from Beaumanoir's description, he had no difficulty in recognizing as the sham "Colonel Anstruther Walcot," but who introduced himself as Leopold Benzon, Mr. Ziegler's private secretary.
The idea of a professional criminal being served with such specious pomp tickled Forsyth's sense of humor; but, restraining an impulse to laugh in the fellow's face, he responded gravely to the salutation and stated his business. He had come, he said, after mentioning his name, on behalf of the Duke of Beaumanoir, to see Mr. Ziegler by appointment on a matter of private business.