The commissionaire
preceded them, hat in hand, to the door. A couple of waiters ushered
them to the table which the Vicomte intimated by a gesture.
"I myself," he remarked, drawing off his gloves, "take nothing but
absinthe. What may I have the pleasure of ordering for you?"
Duncombe ordered a whisky and soda.
"I think," he said, "there is one thing which I ought to tell you at
once. I am being shadowed by the police. The man who has just arrived,
and who seems a little breathless, is, I believe, the person whose duty
it is to dog my footsteps in the daytime."
"What a pity!" the Vicomte murmured. "I would at least have taken you a
mile or so round the boulevards if I had known. But wait! You are
sure--that it is the police by whom you are being watched?"
"Quite," Duncombe answered. "The manager of the hotel has spoken to me
about it. He has asked me, in fact, to leave."
"To leave the hotel?"
"Yes! I was on my way to the Ritz to secure rooms when I met you."
The Vicomte sipped his absinthe gravely.
"I should not take those rooms," he said. "You will in all probability
not occupy them."
"Why not?"
"It has been decided," the Vicomte said, "that you are to be driven out
of Paris.
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