The little man in black uttered a professional sigh. "The concierge found him in the morning," he replied. "It is said that he suffered from his heart, that poor Monsieur."
"Good Lord!" said Cobb.
VI
BETWEEN THE LIGHTS
There was but the one hotel in that somber town of East Africa, and Miss Gregory, fronting the proprietor of it squarely, noted that he looked at her with something like amusement. She was a short woman of fifty, grey-haired and composed, and her pleasant face had a quiet and almost masculine strength and assurance. In her grey flannel jacket and short skirt and felt hat, with a sun-umbrella carried like a walking-stick, she looked adequate and worthy. Hers was a presence that earned respect and deference in the highways of travel; she had the air of a veteran voyager.
"I have managed to lose the boat," she said evenly; "and my luggage, of course, has been carried on to Zanzibar."
The hotel proprietor had not risen from his chair. He shrugged and smiled as he looked up at her.
"Vat you vant?" he asked.
Miss Gregory frowned. "I want a room for the night," she answered. "A room and dinner, please."
The man smiled again and bit his nails. He was a lean creature, unshaven and sidelong, and he had the furtive and self-conscious air of one who perpetrates a practical joke. Miss Gregory watched him with some impatience; she had yet to learn that a Portugee of the Coast will even lose money to inconvenience an English man or woman.