e salad, and drank a single glass of chablis. Then he rose
and quitted the chattering, laughing crowd of diners, whose gossip was
mainly upon a sensational run on the red at five o'clock that evening.
One woman, stout and of Hebrew type, sitting with three men, was wildly
merry, for she had won the equivalent to sixty thousand pounds.

All that recklessness jarred upon the young man's nerves. He tried to
close his ears to it all, and ascended again to his room, where he
sat in silent despondency till it was time for him to go round to the
Metropole to join Lady Ranscomb and Dorise.

He had brushed his hair and rearranged his tie, and was about to put on
the pierrot's costume of white satin with big buttons of black velvet
which he had worn at the _bal blanc_ at Mentone about a week before,
when the page handed him another note.

Written in a distinctly foreign hand, it read:

"Instantly you receive this get into a travelling-suit and put what
money and valuables you have into your pockets. Then go to a dark-green
car which will await you by the reservoir in the Boulevard du Midi.
Trust the driver. You must get over the frontier into Italy at the
earliest moment. Every second's delay is dangerous to you. Do not
trouble to find out who sends you this warning! _Bon voyage!_"

Hugh Henfrey read it and re-read it. The truth was plain. The police
of Monaco suspected him, and intended that he should be arrested on
suspicion of having committed the crime.

But who was his unknown friend?

He stood at the window reflecting. If he did not keep his appointment
with Dorise she would reproach him for breaking his word to her. On the
other hand, if he motored to Nice he would no doubt be arrested on the
French frontier a few miles along the Corniche road.

Inspector Ogier suspected him, hence discretion was the better part of
valour. So, after brief consideration, he threw off his dress clothes
and assumed a suit of dark tweed. He put his money and a few articles of
jewellry in his pockets, and getting into his overcoat he slipped out of
the hotel by the back entrance used by the staff.

Outside, he walked in the darkness along the Boulevard du Nord, past the
Turbie station, until he came to the long blank wall behind which lay
the reservoir.

At the kerb he saw the dim red rear-light of a car, and almost at the
same moment a rough-looking Italian chauffeur approached him.

"Quick, signore!" he whispered excitedly. "E