"Meester Pennington is here; where is he? I am here to speak with
him."
"Pennington was here," I replied, "but he has gone."
"Then he only went out this moment! I must see him. He is in the
hotel!" my visitor exclaimed quickly.
"I suppose he is," I replied rather faintly; "we had better ask the
waiter. He is not stopping here. He merely came to-night to dine with
us."
"Of course," said Delanne. "He arrived by the 2.37 train from
Bruxelles, went to the Hôtel Dominici, near the Place Vendôme, sent
you a _petit-bleu_, and arrived here at 6.30. I am here because I wish
to see him most particularly. I was in Orleans when the news of my
friend's arrival in Paris was telephoned to me--I have only just
arrived."
I opened the door leading to my bedroom, and called my father-in-law,
but there was no response. In an instant Delanne dashed past me, and
in a few seconds had searched the suite.
"Ah, of course!" he cried, noticing that the door of my wife's room
led back to the main corridor; "my friend has avoided me. He has
passed out by this way. Still, he must be in the hotel."
He hurried back to the salon, and, opening the shutters, took off his
hat.
Was it some signal to the watchers outside? Ere I could reach his
side, however, he had replaced his hat, and was re-entering the room.
"Phew! this place is stifling hot, my dear friend," he said. "I wonder
you do not have the windows open for a little!"
Sylvia had stood by in silence. I saw by her face that the Frenchman's
sudden appearance had caused her the greatest alarm and dismay. If
Delanne was her father's friend, why did the latter flee in such fear?
Why had he implored me to save him? From what?
The Frenchman seemed highly disappointed, for finding the waiter in
the corridor he asked him in French which way the Englishman had fled.
The waiter, however, declared that he had seen nobody in the corridor,
a reply which sorely puzzled Delanne.
"Where is he?" he demanded of Sylvia.
"I have no idea," was her faltering reply. "He simply went into the
next room a few moments ago."
"And slipped out in an endeavour to make his exit, eh?" asked the man,
with a short, harsh laugh. "I quite expected as much. That is why I
intended to have a straight business talk with him."
"He is in no mood to talk business just now," said my wife, and
then--and only then--did I recollect that this man was the associate
of the assassin Reckitt.
This fact alone aroused my antagonism towards him. Surely I was glad
that Pennington had got away if, as it seemed, he did not wish to meet
his unwelcome visitor.
"He _shall_ talk business!" cried the Frenchman, "and very serious
business!"
Then turning, he hurried along the corridor in the direction of the
main staircase and disappeared.
"What does all this mean?" I asked Sylvia, who still stood there pale
and panting.
"I--I don't know, Owen," she gasped. Then, rushing across to the
window, she looked out.
"That man has gone!" she cried. "I--I knew he was watching, but had no
idea of the reason."
"He was evidently watching for your father," I said.
"He was watching us--you and I--not him."
We heard two men pass the door quickly. One of them exclaimed in
French--
"See! The window at the end! It would be easy to get from there to the
roof of the next house."
"Yes!" cried his companion. "He has evidently gone that way. We must
follow."
"Hark!" I said. "Listen to what they are saying! Delanne is following
your father!"
"He is his worst enemy," she said simply. "Do you not remember that he
was watching him in Manchester?"
The fact that he was an associate of Reckitt puzzled me. I felt highly
resentful that the fellow should have thus intruded upon my privacy
and broken up my very pleasant evening. He had intruded himself upon
me once before, causing me both annoyance and chagrin. I looked forth
into the corridor, and there saw the figures of two men in the act of
getting through the window at the end, while a waiter and a
_femme-de-chambre_ stood looking on in surprise.
"Who is that man?" I asked of Sylvia, as I turned back into our salon.
"His real name is Guertin," she replied.
"He told me that he knew you."
"Perhaps," she laughed, just a trifle uneasily, I thought. "I only
know that he is my father's enemy. He is evidently here to hunt him
down, and to denounce him."
"As what?"
But she only shrugged her shoulders. Next instant I saw that I had
acted wrongly in asking Sylvia to expose her own father, whatever his
faults might have been.
Again somebody rushed past the door and then back again to the head of
the staircase. The whole of the quiet aristocratic hotel seemed to
have suddenly awakened from its lethargy. Indeed, a hue and cry seemed
to have been started after the man who had until a few moments before
been my guest.
What could this mean? Had it not been for the fact that Guertin--or
Delanne, as he called himself--was a friend of the assassin Reckitt, I
would have believed him to have been an agent of the _sûreté_.
We heard shouting outside the window at the end of the corridor. It
seemed as though a fierce chase had begun after the fugitive
Englishman, for yet another man, a thin, respectably-dressed mechanic,
had run along and slipped out of the window with ease as though
acquired by long practice.
I, too, ran to the window and looked out. But all I could see in the
night was a bewildering waste of roofs and chimneys extending along
the Rue de Rivoli towards the Louvre. I could only distinguish one of
the pursuers outlined against the sky. Then I returned to where Sylvia
was standing pale and breathless.
Her face was haggard and drawn, and I knew of the great tension her
nerves must be undergoing. Her father was certainly no coward. Fearing
that he could not escape by either the front or back door of the
hotel his mind had been quickly made up, and he had made his exit by
that window, taking his chance to hide and avoid detection on those
many roofs in the vicinity.
The position was, to me, extremely puzzling. I could not well press
Sylvia to tell me the truth concerning her father, for I had noticed
that she always had shielded him, as was natural for a daughter, after
all.
Was he an associate of Reckitt and Forbes, as I had once suspected?
Yet if he were, why should Delanne be his enemy, for he certainly was
Reckitt's intimate friend.
Sylvia was filled with suppressed excitement. She also ran along the
corridor and peered out of the window at the end. Then, apparently
satisfied that her father had avoided meeting Delanne, she returned
and stood again silent, her eyes staring straight before her as though
dreading each second to hear shouts of triumph at the fugitive's
detection.
I saw the manager and remonstrated with him. I was angry that my
privacy should thus be disturbed by outsiders.
"Monsieur told the clerk that he was a friend," he replied politely.
"Therefore he gave permission for him to be shown upstairs. I had no
idea of such a contretemps, or such a regrettable scene as this!"
I saw he was full of regret, for the whole hotel seemed startled, and
guests were asking each other what had occurred to create all that
hubbub.
For an hour we waited, but Delanne did not return. He and the others
had gone away over the roofs, on what seemed to be an entirely
fruitless errand.
"Were they the police?" I heard a lady ask anxiously of a waiter.
"No, madame, we think not. They are strangers--and entirely unknown."