None heard him. The new bottle demanded attention. There was something vaguely familiar about the face but for the life of him Trent could not place it. Uneasily he was aware that the man of whom this strange waiter reminded him had come at a moment of danger. The more he looked the more certain he was that imperial and moustache were the disguising features. But it is not easy to strip such appendages off in the mind’s eye and see clearly what lies beneath. But there was a way to do so. On the back of an envelope Trent sketched the waiter as he appeared. It was a good likeness. Then with the rubber on his pencil end he erased moustache and imperial. The face staring at him now was beyond a question that of Devlin, the man who had run foul of him over the case of the Mount Aubyn ruby. He remembered now that Devlin had left Jerome Dangerfield’s employ to join a New York detective agency.
What was Devlin doing here disguised as a waiter if not on his trail? And pressed against his side was a stone of world fame. There was no possibility of escape. The dining room was twenty feet from the street below and he had no way of reaching it. The door was guarded by Devlin and outside in the corridor waiters flitted to and fro. “Old Sir Richard caught at last.”
He was roused from his eager scheming by a waiter asking what liqueur he would have. Automatically he ordered the only liqueur he liked, green chartreuse. Would Devlin allow the party to break up? If so he had a place of safety already prepared for the emerald. But if arrest and search were to take place before he could reach his room there was no help. He would be lucky to get off with fifteen years.
Something told him that Devlin was about to act. Waiters were now grouped about the door. He knew that Devlin must long ago have marked him down and this was the final scene. And yet, oddly enough, when suddenly the door closed and a truculent detective advanced to the table tearing off moustache and imperial, Anthony Trent, who had not left his seat, had no longer the incriminating stone upon him. He felt, in fact, reasonably secure.
“Quiet youze,” Devlin shouted and flashed a badge at them. Five of the eight felt certain he had come for them. Weiller owed much money in the vicinity of Fort Lee, New Jersey and was never secure. And more than that he had passed many opprobrious remarks concerning the waiter whom he supposed did not understand him.
“I’m employed,” said Devlin, “to recover the emerald stolen from the home of the late Andrew Apthorpe of Groton, Massachusetts, on the third of last month, and you can be searched here or in the station house.”
“It’s an outrage,” exclaimed Miss Richards the character woman.
“Sure it is,” Devlin agreed cynically, “but what are you going to do about it?”
A woman operative was introduced who took the ladies of the party into an adjoining room for search. The emerald was not found. The search revealed merely, that Miss Richards had been souvenir hunting and her spoils were a knife, spoon and olive fork.
The men had passed the ordeal successfully. That they had made the most of their host’s temporary absence the pockets full of cigars, cigarettes and salted almonds testified. Anthony Trent seemed hugely amused at the procedure. Alone of them he did not breathe suits for defamation of character and the like.