His darling sin

by M. E. Braddon

"If you come to that, her room was a pig-sty."

"To correspond with her pet name."

"But the hotel was full, and I set the chambermaids at work ten minutes after the Randalls drove to the boat. We had people coming into the rooms that afternoon."

"And you had neither leisure nor curiosity to seek for relics of the lovely creature?"

Monsieur Louis shrugged his shoulders.

"Is my room on the same floor?"

"Mais oui."

"And I have the same chambermaid?"

"Yes. She is the oldest servant we have, and she stays in the hotel all the summer; while most of our staff are in Switzerland."

This was enough for Faunce. He retired to his room early, after smoking a couple of cigarettes under the palm trees in front of the hotel, in the sultry hush of the summer night. The scene around him was all very modern, all very French—a café-concert on the right, a café-concert on the left—and it needed an occasional Arab stalking by in a long white mantle to remind him that he was in Africa. He meant to start on his return journey to London by the next boat. He was not going to Corsica or Sardinia in search of new facts. He trusted to his professional acumen to run the lady to ground in London or Paris.