"Come away, then," said Langdon, with a horrible attempt to smile indifferently.
"No, no. There are too many eyes here that we should leave with the air of a set of stage murderers. Sit down. Let us have a nip of brandy. Talk about racing, women, anything, for a little while, and then go out quietly."
Grenier was right. A detective had already nudged an acquaintance and whispered:
"The pigeon seems to be upset. And one of the hawks is in a rare temper, too. I'll keep an eye on that collection."
He watched them through a mirror. He saw Grenier exert himself to put his companions in a better humor. When they went out he followed, and ascertained from the commissionaire at the door that they had gone toward Shaftesbury Avenue.
By walking rapidly he sighted them again, and saw them turn into a doorway.
"Grenier's chambers!" he said. "What a splendid nerve that fellow has. Reports himself coolly at Scotland Yard every month, and lives in style not half a mile away. How does he manage it? I must make some inquiry about the others."
Certainly the methods of the superior scoundrels of London are peculiar. Grenier knew that he was a marked man in the eyes of the police. He knew that the particular saloon bar he affected was the rendezvous not only of others like himself, but of the smartest detective officers of the metropolitan force. Yet this was his favorite hunting ground. Where the carcass is there are the jackals; he would never dream of honest endeavor in a new land to begin life anew. The feast was spread before his eyes, and he could not resist it.
But Grenier was a careful rogue. After a boyhood of good training and education, he drifted into a bad set at the beginning of his adult career. Once, indeed, he endeavored to put his great natural abilities to some reasonable use by going on the stage. The industrious hardship of the early years of an actor's striving were not to his liking, however. No sooner had he attained a position of trust as manager of a touring company than he tampered with moneys intrusted to his care.
He was not actually found out, but suspected and dismissed. Then the regular gradations of crime came naturally to him. Gambling, card-sharping, company frauds, even successful forgery, succeeded each other in their recognized sequence, until, at last, came detection and a heavy sentence, for the authorities had long waited for him to drop into the net.