"All right. Where shall I take you?"
"Any quiet café will do. You must know one—"
"Thanks—no," said Lanyard dryly. "If I must confabulate with gentlemen of your kidney, I prefer to keep it dark. Even dressed as I am, I might be recognized, you know."
But it was evident that Wertheimer didn't mean to permit himself to be ruffled.
"Then will my modest diggings do?" he suggested pleasantly. "I've taken a suite in the rue Vernet, just back of the Hôtel Astoria, where we can be as private as you please, if you've no objection."
"None whatever."
Wertheimer gave him the number and replaced the window….
His rooms in the rue Vernet proved to be a small ground-floor apartment with private entrance to the street.
"Took the tip from you," he told Lanyard as he unlocked the door. "I daresay you'd be glad to get back to that rez-de-chaussée of yours. Ripping place, that…. By the way—judging from your apparently robust state of health, you haven't been trying to live at home of late."
"Indeed?"