The faintest shadow of what might have developed into a smile hovered for an instant about the famous man-hunter's lips and eyes, and Slyne made a mental note of the fact that he was not above being flattered.
"I'm over here after a fat fellow called Jobling," continued Slyne, ingratiatingly communicative. "I don't suppose you know anything about him?"
The other sniffed, disdainfully.
"An embryo embezzler," said he, in a tone of such conscious superiority that Slyne would surely have laughed in his face if he himself had felt safe. "Give him rope enough and he'll do the rest. Don't disclose yourself for a day or two, but watch him carefully.
"Are you working for New Scotland Yard?"
Slyne had expected some such question, and did not stammer over his answer.
"I've started a private agency on my own account. This is my first case. A thousand thanks for your hint. If all my official friends were as courteous, life would be much pleasanter for me." He spoke with a most respectful inflection, but always in barbarous Anglo-French. "Mille remerciements encore, mon confrère. Et maintenant—à demain."
His new acquaintance nodded with most gracious condescension and moved on in the direction of an obese German diplomatist who had just met amid the throng and greeted with over-acted surprise a pretty Viennese countess. And Slyne did not fail to observe, amid all his own agitation, how promptly the two of them parted again at sight of M. Dubois.
He was conscious that his own nostrils were nervously twitching, and that there were tiny beads of cold perspiration about his forehead.
"He thought he knew me," said he to himself, very tremulously. "And, though I've put him off the scent to some extent, he'll root about till—" For all his nerve of steel, he shivered and changed countenance.