the man's smile was lean and wolfish when the glittering white teeth
flashed through the professional smirk of the traveling artist.
The old, easy assurance was still there, but cognac had dulled the
fires of genius; the tones of the violin trembled, even under the
weakening but still magic fingers, and the splendid sapphire and
diamond cluster ring of old was replaced by a too evident Palais
Royal work of inferior art.

"Poor devil! It is the downward fluttering of the wearied eagle!"
mused Alan Hawke. "Women, roulette, champagne, and high life--all
these past riches fade away into the gloomy pleasures of restaurant
cognac, dead-shot absinthe, and the vicarious smiles of a broken
soubrette or so! And all the more you can be now dangerous to me,
Monsieur Casimir Wieniawski, for the old maneater forgets none of
his tricks, even when toothless."

Casimir, the handsome Pole, glib of tongue, the heir to a thousand
minor graces, reckless in outpouring the wine of Life, had truly
gone the downward way with all the abandon of his showy, insincere
race. Hawke well knew the final level of misery awaiting the
wandering, broken-down artist here in a land where really fine
music was a mere drug; where the orchestra was only a cheap lure
to enhance the cafe addition. The "Professor" was but a minor staff
officer of the grim Teutonic Oberkellner of the Brasserie Concert.

"But how shall I muzzle this Robert Macaire of the bow?" cogitated
Hawke, as he anxiously eyed the two windows of Madame Louison's
rooms, and then sternly gazed at the open front doors of the Hotel
Faucon.