From the body of the vehicle Marian extended a white-gloved hand.
"Good-night, Mr. Sybarite. To-morrow—at five."
Touching her fingers, P. Sybarite raised his hat; but before he could utter the response ready upon his tongue, he was seized by the arm and swung rudely away from the door. At the same time a voice (the property of the owner of that unceremonious hand) addressed the porter roughly:
"Shut that door and send the car along! I'll take charge of this gentleman!"
In this speech an accent of irony inhered to exasperate P. Sybarite. Half a hundred people were looking on—listening! Angrily he wrenched his arm free.
"What the devil—!" he cried into the face of the aggressor; and in the act of speaking, recognised the man as him with whom Bayard Shaynon had been conversing in the lobby: that putative parvenu—hard-faced, cold-eyed, middle-aged, fine-trained, awkward in evening dress....
The hand whose grasp he had broken shifted to his shoulder, closing fingers like steel hooks upon it.
"If you need a row," the man advised him quietly, "try that again. If you've got good sense—come along quiet'."
"Where? What for? What right have you—?" P. Sybarite demanded in one raging breath.
"I'm the house detective here," the other answered, holding his eyes with an inexorable glare. And the muscles of his heavy jaw tightened even as he tightened his grasp upon the little man's shoulder. "And if it's all the same to you, we're going to have a quiet little talk in the office," he added with a jerk of his head.