bly.

He recovered himself and the sombrero together, and twisted round in
his seat so as to get a view of the door, which was on his left hand,
half way down the long room. It had a glass top, across which a dark
green curtain was drawn. Emile knew that it was possible to enter this
room without passing through the _cafe_. There was another door which
led into a passage through the kitchen and back part of the house, and
from thence into a side-street, or rather a small alley.

He had often been that way, and it was generally used by the
frequenters of the place when they had reason to guard their movements.

He listened again.

The voice was even more hoarse than usual and more uncertain. Though
he could not hear the words, the broken sentences gave an impression of
breathlessness. When she stopped speaking he heard the voice of the
proprietor raised in an emphatic stage-whisper. Yes, Monsieur Poleski
was within. Mademoiselle was fortunately in time to find him. If
Mademoiselle would give herself the trouble to wait but for one
moment--.

The little man fancied himself an adept at intrigue, and his methods
were often a cause of anxiety to those he befriended. His nods and
gestures and meaning glances as he emerged would have been enough to
arouse suspicion in the most guileless.

He stood blinking his short-sighted eyes through the haze in his effort
to attract Emile's attention without being detected. The latter got up
and sauntered towards him.

"_Bon soir, Monsieur Lefevre_," he said carelessly. "We have a little
account to settle, you and I, is it not so?"

Fat Monsieur Lefevre rose gallantly to the occasion. He bowed Emile
into the room, locked the door by which they had entered, and with
another bow and a muttered apology scuttled through the passage into
the back regions. Two minutes later he made his reappearance in the
_cafe_ by the front way, and went to his place behind the counter with
the satisfied face of a successful diplomatist.

His little sanctum was typical in its arrangement of the Parisian
_bourgeois_.

Numerous picture post-cards of a famous chanteuse of the Folies
Bergeres proclaimed Monsieur's taste in beauty. For the rest,
everything was neat and rather bare of furniture. There were chairs
symmetrically arranged like sentinels along the walls, tinted lace
curtains, a gilded mirror, and a few doubtful coloured pictures, all of
women. An unshaded electric light flare