"Quite new, and rather delicious, don't you think? My cousin Arthur brought it from Paris a few days ago. I only opened the bottle last night. Mother declared it to be the sweetest she's ever smelt. It's so very strong that one single drop is sufficient."
"What do they call it?"
"Parfait d'Amour. Lauzan, in the Placé Vendôme, makes it. It's quite new, and not yet on the market, Arthur said. He got it—a sample bottle—from a friend of his in the perfume trade."
Not on the market! Those words of hers condemned her. Little did she dream that I had smelt that same sweet, subtle odour as I descended the stairs from Sir Digby's flat. She, no doubt, had recognised my silhouette in the half darkness, yet nevertheless she felt herself quite safe, knowing that I had not seen her.
Why had she been lurking there?
A black cloud of suspicion fell upon me. She kept up a desultory conversation as we went along Piccadilly in the dreary gloom of that dull January afternoon, but I only replied in monosyllables, until at length she remarked:
"Really, Teddy, you're not thinking of a word I'm saying. I suppose your mind is centred upon your friend—the man who has turned out to be an impostor."
The conclusion of that sentence and its tone showed a distinct antagonism.
It was true that the man whom I had known as Sir Digby Kemsley—the man who for years past had been so popular among a really good set in London—was according to the police an impostor.
The detective-inspector had told me so. From the flat in Harrington Gardens the men of the Criminal Investigation Department had rung up New Scotland Yard to make their report, and about noon, while I was resting at home in Albemarle Street, I was told over the telephone that my whilom friend was not the man I had believed him to be.