And she understood.
“I’m not arranging to have you throttled!” she laughed. “Let us say the corridor of the Chateau—that is safe enough, isn’t it?”
“Don’t you know, Madame X, that Peacock Alley is one of the most dangerous places in town?”
“Not for you, Mr. Harleston,” she replied. “However—”
“Oh, I’ll chance it; though it’s a perilous setting with one of your adorable voice—and the other things that simply must go with it.”
“And lest the other things should not go with it,” she added, “I’ll wear three American Beauties on a black gown so that you may know me.”
“Good! Peacock Alley at five,” he replied and snapped up the receiver.
III—Visitors
“The affair promises to be quite interesting,” he confided to the paper-knife, with which he was spearing tiny holes in the blotter of the pad. “Peacock Alley at five—but there are a few matters that come first.”
He went straight to the safe, unlocked it, took out the photograph, the cipher message, and the handkerchief, carried these to the table and placed them in a large envelope, which he sealed and addressed to himself. Then with it, and the three American Beauties, he passed quickly into the corridor and to an adjoining apartment. There he rang the bell vigorously and long.