CHAPTER X
THE GODDESS OF CHANCE
If you have ever had to walk unconcernedly into the crowded vestibule of a fashionable hotel, not knowing at what moment you might be identified and arrested as a notorious criminal, you will no doubt understand, and, perhaps, sympathise with Slyne's state of mind as he entered the Hôtel de Paris. If not, you can at least imagine how he felt as he made his way through the throng toward the bureau, grimly conscious of every inquisitive glance.
There was little enough to shield him from immediate detection, beyond the flight of time and the facts that he had been wearing a beard and living under a French alias—or, as he would have preferred to put it, incognito—when, only a season or two before, he had earned such undesired and undesirable distinction throughout the Côte d'Azur. And he knew very well what his fate would be if he were recognised.
He was very devoutly thankful, therefore, when, having safely run the gauntlet of all those argus eyes which had seemed to be searching his by the way, he found himself installed in an ornate apartment vacated only that morning by a grand duke.
"I can't afford to do things by halves now!" he had reflected, shrugging his shoulders, as he had agreed with the manager, who happened to be on the spot, that the suite in question would probably serve his turn. And even the manager had been impressed by his manner—and his fine car.
"So far, so good, then," said Slyne to himself with a somewhat nervous grimace, as he crossed to the window of his sitting-room and looked out over the moonlit bay, after tossing his keys to a valet with a curt order to lose no time. "And now—I must go on as I've begun. But—I can't help wishing I were well through with it all. I didn't half like the way that clerk watched me with his mouth wide open—and I knew him all right!"
No one could have appeared more care-free, however, than he when, an hour later, he left his dressing-room, ready to face—and outface—the detective talent he still must meet, and sauntered very much at his leisure, a cigarette between his tight lips, in the direction of the table d'hôte.
"Seems pretty dull here," he commented, after an indifferent inspection of the elaborate company there. "I've a good mind to go on to Ciro's—and find out if they have forgotten my face by now too. I won't have any peace of mind till I've been all round the old place." In pursuit of which bold policy he sent a page for his coat and hat, and stood displaying himself to the general public till they arrived.
He found Ciro's well filled, as usual, when he strolled in, taking with perfect outward calm the risk that he might be remembered there. But no hostile glance met his roving eye as he entered the restaurant. He was obsequiously received by an observant head-waiter, and shown to a table which suited his immediate needs to a nicety.