‘I have been in England,’ replied Gavrolles, surveying her with strong dislike.
‘Ah, yes, so I heard. Have you been fortunate there, mon ami?’
‘On the contrary. But you? You live here?’
‘Yes,’ said the woman.
‘You follow the old trade, madame?’
The woman nodded, and the two passed on in conversation. Gavrolles did not look back, or he would have seen, still watching him with curiosity, the two men who had followed him from Charing Cross.
Gavrolles slept that night in the Hôtel de Rouen, a chilly place, half-hotel, half-prison, in a back street of Boulogne. Here he had the pleasure of meeting two or three gentlemen of his acquaintance, who earned their money at the card table and in the billiard room, and spent it in dingy dissipation, like cavaliers of pleasure.
With one of these individuals, an elderly man in a seedy military undress, and with the face and manners of a fire-eater, Gavrolles strolled out next morning, cigar in mouth. Roaming along by the sea, he came face to face, in a quiet spot, with two Englishmen—James Forster and Edgar Sutherland.
Gavrolles started and turned livid, clinging to his companion’s arm, as Sutherland accosted him.
‘I salute you, Monsieur Gavrolles. A word with you, if you please.’