“Douai is a fine town,” remarked Captain Fennel, turning to speak, for he was still looking out over the sea, and had his opera-glasses in his hand. “I spent a week there not long ago.”
“Douai!” exclaimed Nancy. “That’s the place where the great Law Courts are, is it not? Don’t you remember the man last year, Lavinia, who committed some dreadful crime, and was taken up to Douai to be tried at the Assizes there?”
“We have a great case coming on there as soon as the Courts meet,” said the stranger, who seemed a talkative man; “and that’s what I am at Douai for. A case of extensive swindling.”
“You are a lawyer, I presume?” said Miss Preen.
The stranger nodded. “Being the only one of our London firm who can speak French readily, and we are four of us in it, I had to come over and watch this affair and wait for the trial. For the young fellow is an Englishman, I am sorry to say, and his people, worthy and well-to-do merchants, are nearly mad over it.”
“But did he commit it in England?” cried Miss Preen.
“Oh no; in France, within the arrondissement of the Douai Courts. He is in prison there. I dare say you get some swindling in a petty way even at Sainteville,” added the speaker.
“That we do,” put in Nancy. “An English family of ladies ran away only yesterday, owing twenty pounds at least, it is said.”
“Ah,” said the stranger, with a smile. “I think the ladies are sometimes more clever at that game than the men. By the way,” he went on briskly, “do you know a Mr. Dangerfield at Sainteville?”