“It only remains, I think,” said the lawyer, “to discuss the terms which (merely as a matter of generosity, or say, for the credit of your house) can be granted to your—to Mr. Alain.”
“You forget Clausel, I think,” snarled my cousin.
“True, I had forgotten Clausel.” Mr. Romaine stepped to the head of the stairs and called down, “Dudgeon!”
Mr. Dudgeon appeared, and endeavoured to throw into the stiffness of his salutation a denial that he had ever waltzed with me in the moonlight.
“Where is the man Clausel?”
“I hardly know, sir, if you would place the wine-shop of the ‘Tête d’Or’ at the top or at the bottom of this street; I presume the top, since the sewer runs in the opposite direction. At all events Mr. Clausel disappeared about two minutes ago in the same direction as the sewer.”
Alain sprang up, whistle in hand.
“Put it down,” said Mr. Romaine. “The man was cheating you. I can only hope,” he added with a sour smile, “that you paid him on account with an I.O.U.”
But Alain turned at bay. “One trivial point seems to have escaped you, Master Attorney, or your courage is more than I gave you credit for. The English are none too popular in Paris as yet, and this is not the most scrupulous quarter. One blast of this whistle, a cry of ‘Espion Anglais!’ and two Englishmen——”
“Say three,” Mr. Romaine interrupted, and strode to the door. “Will Mr. Burchell Fenn be good enough to step upstairs?”