ima signora_ arrives in
Algiers she will find she has a champion!"

"How do you know she is coming to Algiers?" I asked startled.

"As soon as I learned that Captain Vauvenarde was here," he replied
proudly, "I sent her a telegram. 'Husband found; come at once.' I know
she is coming, for she has not answered."

An idea occurred to me. "Did you sign your name and address on the
telegram?"

He approached me confidentially as I sat, and wagged a cunning finger.

"In matters of life and death, never give your name and address."

As Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos was himself again, and as I began
to sneeze--for the night was chilly--I rose and suggested that we might
adjourn this conference till the morrow. He acquiesced, saying that all
was not lost and that he still had time to mature his combinations. We
crossed the road, and I hailed a cab standing by the Cafe d'Alger. I
offered Anastasius to drive him to his hotel, but he declined politely.
We shook hands.

"Monsieur," said he, "I have to make my heartfelt apologies for having
caused you so painful, so useless, and so expensive an evening. As for
the last aspect I will repay you."

"You will do no such thing, Professor," said I. "My evening has, on
the contrary, been particularly useful and instructive. I wouldn't have
missed it for the world."

And I drove off homewards, glad to be in my own company.

Here was an imbroglio! The missing husband found and, like most
missing husbands, found to be entirely undesirable. And Lola, obviously
imagining her summons to be from me, was at that moment speeding hither
as fast as the _Marechal Bugeaud_ could carry her. If I had discovered
Captain Vauvenarde instead of Anastasius I would have anathematised
him as the most meddlesome, crazy little marplot that ever looked like
Napoleon the Third. But as the credit of the discovery belonged to him
and not to me, I could only anathematise myself for my dilettanteism in
the capacity of a private inquiry agent.

I went to bed and slept badly. The ludicrous scenes of the evening
danced before my eyes; the smoke-filled, sordid room, the ignoble faces
round the table, the foolish hullaballoo, the collapse of Anastasius,
my melodramatic intervention, and the ironical courtesy of the fleshy
Captain Vauvenarde. Also, in the small hours of the night, Anastasius's
gigantic combinations assumed a less trivial aspect. What lunatic scheme
was being hatched behind that dome-like brow?