A. E. W. Mason

“ And you go back late to the hotel very uncomfortable because you are quite sure that somewhere in the still night six little officials with black beards and green-shaded lamps are writing it all down in your dossier. But—wait!"
He suddenly rose from his chair with his finger to his lips, and his eyes opened wide. Never was a man so mysterious, so important in his mystery. He stole on tiptoe, with a lightness of step amazing in so bulky a man, to the door. Noiselessly and very slowly, with an alert, bright eye cocked at Frobisher like a bird's, he turned the handle. ”

“ He sat with the file poised on the palm of his hand as though he was weighing it, extraordinarily still; and Jim had a swift impression that he was more than disconcerted. Then Hanaud put the file into the drawer and closed the drawer softly. As softly he spoke, but in a sleek voice which to Frobisher's ears had a note in it which was actually alarming.
"So you have been informed of that, Mr. Frobisher! And in London! And—yes—this is only Wednesday! News travels very quickly nowadays, to be sure! Well, your firm is correctly informed. I congratulate you. A point is scored by you." ”

“ It is the passion of one public official to take a great big club and hit his brother official on the back of the head. It is arranged that I shall go secretly to Dijon so that I may have some little chance of success. Good! On Saturday it is so arranged, and already on Monday my colleagues have so spread the news that Miss Harlowe can telegraph it to you on Tuesday morning. But that is kind, eh? May I please see the telegram?"
Frobisher took it from the long envelope and handed it to Hanaud, who received it with a curious eagerness and opened it out on the table in front of them. ”

“ I behold wonderful things and I behold them in the dark—so that while I watch I can talk quietly with a friend, and when the lights go up we are both gone, and only our empty bocks are left to show where we were sitting. The cinemas—yes! With their audiences which constantly change and new people coming in who sit plump down upon your lap because they cannot see an inch beyond their noses, the cinemas are useful. ”

“ Suddenly out of a clear sky they will come like a pestilence, full of vile charges difficult to refute and—who knows?—sometimes perhaps true. For a while these abominations flow into the letter-boxes and not a word is said. If money is demanded, money is paid. ”

“ He did not volunteer the name of the obscure hotel or the name under which he proposed to masquerade, and Jim was careful not to inquire. Hanaud stood with his hand upon the knob of the door and his eyes thoughtfully resting upon Frobisher's face.
"I will trust you with a little trick of mine," he said, and a smile warmed and lit his face to good-humour. "Do you like the pictures? No—yes? For me, I adore them. Wherever I go I snatch an hour for the cinema. ”

“ A smile flickered across Hanaud's face and restored it to some of its geniality.
"It has always been a good rule to lay it on with a trowel," he observed. "Now, what kind of help, Mr. Frobisher?"
"This kind of help, Monsieur Hanaud. Two letters from Boris Waberski demanding money, the second one with threats. Both were received by my firm before he brought this charge, and both of course remain unanswered." ”

“ Then he gathered together the two letters which Boris Waberski had written and gave them back to Jim Frobisher.
"You will want these to produce at Dijon. You will go there today?"
"This afternoon."
"Good!" said Hanaud. "I shall take the night express."
"I can wait for that," said Jim. But Hanaud shook his head.
"It is better that we should not go together, nor stay at the same hotel. It will very quickly be known in Dijon that you are the English lawyer of Miss Harlowe, and those in your company will be marked men too. ”

“ I am curious!"
"From Miss Harlowe."
For a moment Hanaud was for the second time in that interview quite disconcerted. Of that Jim Frobisher could have no doubt. He sat for so long a time, his cigarette half-way to his lips, a man turned into stone. Then he laughed rather bitterly, with his eyes alertly turned on Jim.
"Do you know what I am doing, Monsieur Frobisher?" he asked. "I am putting to myself a riddle. Answer it if you can! What is the strongest passion in the world? Avarice? Love? Hatred? ”

“ Frobisher is of a loose and excessive life.' And that goes into your dossier—yes, my friend, just so! But here in the Sûreté—never breathe a word of it, or you ruin me!—here we are like your Miss Betty Harlowe, 'we snap us the fingers at those dossiers.'"
Jim Frobisher's mind was of the deliberate order. To change from one mood to another required a progression of ideas. He hardly knew for the moment whether he was upon his head or his heels. A minute ago Hanaud had been the grave agent of Justice ”

“ The little towns, my friend, where life is not very gay and people have the time to be interested in the affairs of their neighbours, have their own crimes, and perhaps the most pernicious of them all is the crime of anonymous letters. ”

“ Jim was familiar with the Corona machine himself, and he had remembered that if one used by error the stop for figures, instead of the stop for capital letters, those two mistakes would result. He realized now, with Hanaud's delighted face in front of him—Hanaud was the urchin now—that the Sûreté was certain not to have overlooked those two indications even if the magistrate at Dijon had ”