my bed.

"No. This man Senos was very decided upon the point."

"He has reasons, no doubt," remarked the detective.

"It is just four o'clock," I remarked. "He has given me a rendezvous at
the Cafe de la Regence, a little place at the corner of the Place
d'Armes. I went round to find it as soon as I arrived. We're due there in
a quarter of an hour."

"Then let us go, messieurs," Fremy suggested.

"And what about Miss Shand?" I asked.

The two detectives held a brief discussion. Then Edwards, addressing me,
said:

"I really think that she ought to be present, Mr. Royle. Would you bring
her? Prepare her for a scene--as there no doubt will be--and then follow
us."

"But Senos will not speak without I am present," I said.

"Then go along to Miss Shand, give her my official compliments and ask
her to accompany us upon our expedition," he replied.

And upon his suggestion I at once acted.

Truly those moments were breathless and exciting. I could hear my own
heart beat as I went along the hotel corridor to knock at the door of her
room.

CHAPTER XXX.

FACE TO FACE.

We had, all four of us, ranged ourselves up under the wall of a big white
house in the Chausee de Nieuport, which formed the south side of the
racecourse, and where, between us and the sea, rose the colossal Royal
Palace Hotel, when Fremy advanced to the big varnished oak door, built
wide for the entrance of automobiles, and rang the electric bell.

In response there came out a sedate, white-whiskered man-servant in black
coat and striped yellow waistcoat, the novel Belgium livery, but in an
instant he was pinioned by the two detectives from Brussels, and the way
opened for us.

"No harm, old one!" cried the detectives in French, after the man had
admitted his master was at home. "We are police-agents, and doing our
duty. We don't want you, only we don't intend you to cry out, that's all.
Keep a still tongue, old one, and you're all right!" they laughed as they
kept grip of him. The Continental detective is always humorous in the
exercise of his duty. I once witnessed in Italy a man arrested for
murder. He had on a thin light suit, and having been to bed in it, the
back was terribly pleated and creased. "Hulloa!" cried the detective, "so
it is you. Come along, old dried fig!" I was compelled to laugh, for the
culprit's thin, brown coat had all the creases of a Christmas fig.

The house we rushed in was a big, luxurious one, with a wi