“No doubt that is so. But why should he take all this interest in me? I don’t know and have never even met him.”
“Il Passero is always courteous. He assists the weak against the strong. He is like your English bandit Claude Duval of the old days. He always robs with exquisite courtesy, and impresses the same trait upon all who are in his service. And I may add that all are well paid and all devoted to their great master.”
“I have heard that he has a house in London,” Hugh said. “Do you know where it is situated?”
“Somewhere near Piccadilly. But I do not know exactly where it is. He is always vague regarding his address. His letters he receives in several names at a newspaper shop in Hammersmith and at the Poste Restante at Charing Cross.”
“What names?” asked Hugh, highly interested.
“Oh! a number. They are always being changed,” the French girl replied.
“Where do you write when you want to communicate with him?”
“Generally to the Poste Restante in the Avenue de l’Opera, in Paris. Letters received there are collected for him and forwarded every day.”
“And so clever is he that nobody suspects him—eh?”
“Exactly, m’sieur. His policy is always ‘Rengraciez!’ and he cares not a single rotin for La Reniffe,” she replied, dropping again into the slang of French thieves.