His doubts altogether dissipated by this incident, Lanyard followed his natural enemy into the dining-room with an air as devil-may-care as one could wish and so impressive that the maitre-d'hotel abandoned the detective to the mercies of one of his captains and himself hastened to seat Lanyard and take his order.
This last disposed of; Lanyard surrendered himself to new impressions—of which the first proved a bit disheartening.
However impulsively, he hadn't resought Troyon's without definite intent, to wit, to gain some clue, however slender, to the mystery of that wretched child, Marcel. But now it appeared he had procrastinated fatally: Time and Change had left little other than the shell of the Troyon's he remembered. Papa Troyon was gone; Madame no longer occupied the desk of the caisse; enquiries, so discreetly worded as to be uncompromising, elicited from the maitre-d'hôtel the information that the house had been under new management these eighteen months; the old proprietor was dead, and his widow had sold out lock, stock and barrel, and retired to the country—it was not known exactly where. And with the new administration had come fresh decorations and furnishings as well as a complete change of personnel: not even one of the old waiters remained.
"'All, all are gone, the old familiar faces,'" Lanyard quoted in vindictive melancholy—"damn 'em!"
Happily, it was soon demonstrated that the cuisine was being maintained on its erstwhile plane of excellence: one still had that comfort….
Other impressions, less ultimate, proved puzzling, disconcerting, and paradoxically reassuring.
Lanyard commanded a fair view of Roddy across the waist of the room. The detective had ordered a meal that matched his aspect well—both of true British simplicity. He was a square-set man with a square jaw, cold blue eyes, a fat nose, a thin-lipped trap of a mouth, a face as red as rare beefsteak. His dinner comprised a cut from the joint, boiled potatoes, brussels sprouts, a bit of cheese, a bottle of Bass. He ate slowly, chewing with the doggedness of a strong character hampered by a weak digestion, and all the while kept eyes fixed to an issue of the Paris edition of the London Daily Mail, with an effect of concentration quite too convincing.
Now one doesn't read the Paris edition of the London Daily Mail with tense excitement. Humanly speaking, it can't be done.
Where, then, was the object of this so sedulously dissembled interest?
Lanyard wasn't slow to read this riddle to his satisfaction—in as far, that is, as it was satisfactory to feel still more certain that Roddy's quarry was another than himself.