ing down the hallway caused the intruder to
draw back and listen. He turned quickly, waited, and came to a quick,
new decision. Before doing so, however, he re-examined the room more
critically.

This Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff was, obviously, a man of taste.
He was also a man of means--and Durkin wondered if in that fact alone
lay the reason why a certain young Belgian adventuress had followed him
from Tangier to Algeciras, and from Algeciras to Gibraltar, and from
Gibraltar still on to the Riviera. She had, at any rate, not followed
a scentless quarry. He was not the mere curled and perfumed impostor
so common to that little principality of shams. Even the garrulous
young Chicagoan, from whom Durkin had secured his first Casino tickets,
was able to vouch for the fact that Pobloff was a true _boyard_. He
was also something or other in the imperial diplomatic service--just
what it was Durkin could not at the moment remember.

But he nursed his own personal convictions as to the moral stability of
this true _boyard_. He had quietly witnessed, at Algeciras, the
Prince's adroit card "riffling" in the sun-parlors of The Reina
Cristina, when the gouty ex-ambassador to Persia had parted company
with many cumbersome dollars. Durkin's only course, in that time of
adversity and humility, had been one of silence. But he had inwardly
and adventurously resolved, if ever Fate should bring him and the
Prince together under circumstances more untrammelled, he would not let
pass a chance to balance up that ledger of princely venality. For here
indeed was an adversary, Durkin very well knew, who was worthy of any
man's steel.

So the intruder, opening and closing drawers as he went, glanced
quickly but appreciatively at the highly emblazoned cards lying on the
little red-leather-covered writing-table, at the litter of papers
bearing the red and blue and gold of the triple-crowned double eagle,
at the solid gold seal, at the row of splendid and regal-looking women
in silver photograph holders, above the reading-desk, and a decanter or
two of cut-glass. In one of the drawers of this desk he found an
ivory-handled revolver, a toy-like thirty-two caliber hammerless, of
English make. Durkin glanced at it curiously, noticed that each
chamber held its cartridge, turned it over in his hand, replaced it in
the drawer, and after a moment's thought, took it out once more and
slipped it into his hip pocket. Then his rapidly rov