In order to impress upon him the fact that I was in no hurry, I lit a cigarette, and seated myself upon the low wall of the terrace, softly whistling an air of the café chantant. The night was now glorious, the mountain crests showing white in the moonlight.
Who was this man, I wondered? I regretted that we had not discovered his presence before Sylvia had left. She would, no doubt, have recognized him, and told me the reason of his watchfulness.
At last, I suppose, I must have tired him out, for suddenly he hastened from his hiding-place, and, creeping beneath the shadow of the hotel, succeeded in reaching the door through which Sylvia had passed.
As he entered, the light from the lounge within gave me a swift glance of his features. He was a thin, grey-faced, rather sad-looking man, dressed in black, but, to my surprise, I noticed that his collar was that of an English clergyman!
This struck me as most remarkable. Clergymen are not usually persons to be feared.
I smiled to myself, for, after all, was it not quite possible that the reverend gentleman had found himself within earshot of us, and had been too embarrassed to show himself at once? What sinister motive could such a man possess?
I looked around the great lounge, with its many tables and great palms, but it was empty. He had passed through and ascended in the lift to his room.
Inquiry of the night-porter revealed that the man’s name was the Reverend Edmund Shuttleworth, and that he came from Andover, in England. He had arrived at six o’clock that evening, and was only remaining the night, having expressed his intention of going on to Riva on the morrow.
So, laughing at my fears—fears which had been aroused by that strange warning of Sylvia’s—I ascended to my room.