"A thousand pardons," returned that individual. "I am indeed looking for some one—whom I thought to find here. I had no intention, however, of intruding upon a lady—" He bowed profusely to Sallie. "It may be," he suggested, "that I have mistaken the number. Is not this the suite 161?"
"One hundred and sixty," Slyne told him, and evidently did not think it worth while to add that the next suite was his own.
"A thousand pardons," repeated M. Dubois, very penitently. "I am too stupid! But mademoiselle will perhaps be so gracious as to forgive me this time."
He bowed to Sallie again and to Slyne, and disappeared, sharply scanning the latter's face to the last.
"Who's that son of a sea-cook?" snapped Captain Dove, and Mr. Jobling looked wanly up out of one eye.
"A French detective," Slyne answered reflectively. But Sallie felt sure that he was afraid of M. Dubois, and wondered why.
"Well, he has nothing against me that I'm aware of," the old man declared. "And now—what about this wire? Does it mean that some other fellow has scooped the pool—and that I've had all my trouble for nothing, eh?" He clenched his fist again and shook it in the lawyer's face.
"No, no," gasped Mr. Jobling. "Don't be so hasty. It makes no difference at all, now that we have Lady Josceline with us. I told you that the American, Carthew, is of no account against her—and how he has ever cropped up again I can't conceive. In any case—"
"In any case, you'd better be off to your room and ring for a bit of beefsteak to doctor that eye with," Slyne interposed in a tone of intense annoyance.
"And I wish to goodness, Dove!" he added savagely, "that you would behave a little more like a reasonable human being and less—"