His right hand he kept still hidden behind his back--




CHAPTER XXV


The great open-air restaurant in the Champs Élysées was full of
foreigners, and Paul de Virieu and Bill Chester were sitting opposite to
one another on the broad terrace dotted with little tables embowered in
flowering shrubs.

They were both smoking,--the Englishman a cigar, the Frenchman a
cigarette. It was now half-past seven, and instead of taking the first
express to Switzerland they had decided to have dinner comfortably in
Paris and to go on by a later train.

Neither man felt that he had very much to say to the other, and Chester
started a little in his seat when Paul de Virieu suddenly took his
cigarette out of his mouth, put it down on the table, and leant forward.
He looked at the man sitting opposite to him straight in the eyes.

"I do not feel at all happy at our having left Mrs. Bailey alone at
Lacville," he said, deliberately.

Chester stared back at him, telling himself angrily as he did so that he
did not in the least know what the Frenchman was driving at!

What did Paul de Virieu mean by saying this stupid, obvious thing, and