looked
curiously at the dominoes which stood before her neighbor.

"Monsieur plays dominoes, perhaps?" she remarked, taking one of them
into her fingers and examining it. "A very interesting game!"

Peter Ruff showed her a domino which he had been covering with his
hand--it was a double four. She nodded, and moved from her seat to one
immediately next him.

"I had not imagined," Peter Ruff said, "that it was a lady whom I was to
meet."

"Monsieur is not disappointed, I trust?" she said, smiling. "If I talk
banalities, Monsieur must pardon it. Both the waiters here are spies,
and there are always people who watch. Monsieur is ready to do us a
service?"

"To the limits of my ability," Peter Ruff answered. "Madame will
remember that we are not in Paris; that our police system, if not so
wonderful as yours, is still a closer and a more present thing. They
have not the brains at Scotland Yard, but they are persistent--hard to
escape."

"Do I not know it?" the woman said. "It is through them that we send for
you. One of us is in danger."

"Do I know him?" Peter Ruff asked.

"It is doubtful," she answered. "Monsieur's stay in Paris was so brief.
If Monsieur will recognize his name--it is Jean Lemaitre himself."

Peter Ruff started slightly.

"I thought," he said, with some hesitation, "that Lemaitre did not visit
this country."

"He came well disguised," the woman answered. "It was thought to be
safe. Nevertheless, it was a foolish thing. They have tracked him
down from hotel to apartments, till he lives now in the back room of
a wretched little cafe in Soho. Even from there we cannot get him
away--the whole district is watched by spies. We need help."

"For a genius like Lemaitre," Peter Ruff said, thoughtfully, "to have
even thought of Soho, was foolish. He should have gone to Hampstead
or Balham. It is easy to fool our police if you know how. On the other
hand, they hang on to the scent like leeches when once they are on the
trail. How many warrants are there out against Jean in this country?"

"Better not ask that," the woman said, grimly. "You remember the raid on
a private house in the Holloway Road, two years ago, when two policemen
were shot and a spy was stabbed? Jean was in that--it is sufficient!"

"Are any plans made at all?" Peter Ruff asked.

"But naturally," the woman answered. "There is a motor car, even now, of
sixty-horse-power, stands ready at a garage in Putney. If Jean can once
reach it