In the entrance-hall of the hotel I saw the man Logan, the man who held
my love's secret, seated in a chair patiently awaiting her summons.
There were others, well-dressed men and women, in evening toilettes
lounging there in the hour before retiring. It is curious with what
studied ease women lounge at hotels. The woman who is alert and upright
at home falls into the most graceful poses after dinner at a hotel,
presumably to court the admiration of strangers.
The man Logan, however, still wore his light overcoat over his
dinner-jacket, and his head was buried in an evening paper, whether,
however, this was to conceal his features or not I was unable to
determine. Still, he was wanted by the police, and was therefore taking
every precaution against being recognised. From where I stood at the
back of the large square hall, I saw that his features had been slightly
altered by the darkening of his eyebrows, undoubtedly with that object
in view.
As I stood watching unseen, a waiter approached, spoke to him, and then
he followed the man upstairs to the presence of my adored.
Had I done wrong in allowing the fellow to go to her alone? That was
the thought which next moment seized me. Yet when I recollected her
earnest appeal I could only remain lost in wonderment at her motive.
But determined on watching the man in secret, I fetched my hat and
overcoat, and sat patiently in the hall to await his return.
The clock chimed eleven musically, and a party of Americans noisily left
to catch the night mail to London. The staff changed, the night-porter
came on duty, and the little group of idlers in the hall gradually
diminished. Indeed, they grew so few that I feared in passing out he
might recognise me. Therefore at half-past eleven I strode forth into
the night. Princes Street with its long line of lights, looked bright
and pleasant even at that hour, yet it was almost deserted save for one
or two belated wayfarers.
I took up my position at the railings on the opposite side of the road,
from where I could see each person emerging from the hotel. Long and
anxiously I waited, wondering what was transpiring in that room the
window of which was straight before me. The blind was down, but no
shadow was cast upon it, so I could surmise nothing.
At last he came. For a moment he stood on the steps, evidently in
hesitation. Then he descended and hurried away. I followed him
closely, across the railway, up High Street, and then he plunged into an
intricate labyrinth of narrow streets quite unknown to me. At the time
I believed he was not aware that I was following him, but when I
recollect how cleverly he evaded me I now quite recognise that he must
have detected my presence from the first. At any rate, after leading me
through a number of narrow thoroughfares in a low quarter of the city,
he suddenly turned a corner and disappeared from my sight as completely
as though he had vanished into air.
My own idea is that he disappeared into a house--probably into one of
those whose doors are open always as a refuge for thieves, and there are
many in every big city in the kingdom, houses where pressure on the door
causes it to yield and close again noiselessly, and from which there is
an exit into another thoroughfare.
I spent some little time in making an examination of the houses at the
spot where he had so suddenly become lost, but finding myself baffled,
turned, and after wandering for a full half-hour lost in those crooked
streets of old Edinburgh, I at last found myself in a thoroughfare I
recognised, and turned to the hotel more than ever convinced of the
man's shrewdness.
Next morning, at ten o'clock, I found Lolita alone in her sitting-room,
and on entering saw by her countenance that the night had, for her, been
a sleepless one.
"Well," I said, raising her hand reverently to my lips as was my wont,
"and what was the result of last night's interview?"