bore the words "Taverne Maladosie
Quai des Anges, Boulogne," printed upon it in rather ornate script.

"A bit of rag, a scrap of newspaper, a fowl's feather--anything? Look
sharp!"

"No, sir, not a thing of any sort that I can see from here. Shall
I nip over and make sure?"

"Yes. Only don't give away the fact that you are examining it in case
there should be anybody on the lookout. If you find the smallest
thing--even a carpet tack--attached to the post, get back into your
seat at once and cut off townward as fast as you can make the car
travel."

"Right you are, sir," said Lennard, and forthwith did as he had been
bidden. In less than ninety seconds, however, he was back with word
that the post's surface was as smooth as your hand and not a thing
of any sort attached to it from top to bottom.

Narkom fetched a deep breath of relief at this news, tucked the card
into his pocket, and got out immediately.

"Hang round the neighbourhood somewhere and keep your ears open in
case I should have to give the signal sooner than I anticipate," he
said; then twisted round on his heel, turned into the tree-bordered
lane, and bore down in the direction of the river.

When still short, by thirty yards or so, of its flowered and
willow-fringed brim, he came upon a quaint little diamond-paned,
red-roofed, low-eaved house set far back from the shore, with a
garden full of violets and primroses and flaunting crocuses in
front of it, and a tangle of blossoming things crowding what once
had been a bower-bordered bowling green in the rear.

"Queen Anne, for a ducat!" he commented as he looked at the place
and took in every detail from the magpie in the old pointed-topped
wicker cage hanging from a nail beside the doorway to the rudely
carved figure of a mermaid over the jutting, flower-filled
diamond-paned window of the bar parlour with its swinging sashes and
its oak-beam sill, shoulder high from the green, sweet-smelling earth.

"How the dickens does he ferret out these places, I wonder? And
what fool has put his money into a show like this in these days of
advancement and enterprise? Buried away from the line of traffic
ashore and shut in by trees from the river. Gad! they can't do a
pound's worth of business in a month at an out-of-the-way roost
like this!"

Certainly, they were not doing much of it that day; for, as he
passed through the taproom, he caught a glimpse of the landlady
dozing in a deep chair by the window,