'They are all at a hotel in Antwerp.'
'All!'
'Yes—Lord Cadbury, Sir Ranald, and Miss Cheyne.'
'What hotel?'
'Don't precisely know—I'm seldom on shore myself, and, when I do, never go beyond the Hôtel d'Angleterre on the quay, as I know neither French nor Flemish, and might get stranded. But Gaskins knows where they are, and he's on board just now.'
'Gaskins—who is he?'
'His lordship's groom and valet. Pemmican, pass the word forward for Gaskins—that is, if you want to know.'
'I wish to know very much,' said Goring, scarcely able to restrain his impatience.
Gaskins appeared, just as we saw him last, looking the perfection of an English groom, with a short, dark-grey surtout buttoned to the throat, spotless white tie and cords, long-bodied and short-legged, a straw in his mouth, a flower at his button-hole, and a sudden twinkle of intense cunning in his half-closed eyes, as he recognised Bevil Goring (whom he had often seen out with the hounds), and at once took in the whole situation. He had not been so long in Lord Cadbury's service as not to know what brought him to Antwerp.
'This gentleman wishes to know Lord Cadbury's hotel,' said Tom Llanyard.