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Updated: June 25, 2025
"They have moved into Number 35, sir," Ashley told me. "Mr. Delora complained very much of his rooms, said they were too small, and threatened to move to Claridge's. Number 35 is the best suite we have." I stood, for a moment, thinking. Ashley, meanwhile, had retreated to his place behind the counter. I approached him slowly. "Ashley," I said, "ring up and tell Mr. Delora that I have called."
At that moment my own telephone bell rang. The two men exchanged quick glances. I took up the receiver. "Is that Capitaine Rotherby?" I recognized the voice at once. It was Miss Delora speaking. "Yes!" I answered. "I thought I should like to let you know," she continued, "that I am no longer in the least anxious about my uncle.
"If it comes to a fight, I shall be prepared, and I have had a little experience." "However well armed you may be," Louis said, "there will be a risk. Our enemies are swift and silent. One of them, at any rate, is an accomplished criminal. They are too clever for us unaided. I could take Mademoiselle Delora to Scotland Yard to-day, and I could tell them what we fear.
I must confess that your five exits, two on to the river, would have given me a little shiver if I had not known for certain that I had made my visit to you safe." Delora tried to smile. As a matter of fact, I could see that the man was shaking with fury. "You are a strange person, Captain Rotherby," he said.
I had imagined that my entrance into the room was unnoticed, but I found him suddenly bowing before my table. "The Plat du Jour," he remarked, "is excellent. Monsieur should try it. After a few days of French cookery," he continued, "a simple English dish is sometimes an agreeable relief." "Thank you, Louis," I answered. "Tell me what has become of Mr. Delora?"
I even looked back for a last time into the restaurant. I saw the strained, eager faces of the people bent forward to watch me. Some of the men had left their seats and come out into the body of the hall to get a better view. The man Delora was among them.
At any rate, they showed no pressing desire to make my acquaintance! At Boulogne I descended at once into the saloon and made a hasty meal. When I came up on deck in the harbor I found that the chair which I had engaged was lashed close to the open door of a private cabin, and in the door of that cabin, standing within a few feet of me, was the niece of Monsieur Delora.
"Quite impossible, miss," the man answered. "You must get in here or be left behind." They had barely time to take their seats. As my place was next to the window, I felt bound to help the porter hand in the small packages. The man Delora, who was wrapped up in a fur coat, and who looked ghastly ill, thanked me courteously enough, but the girl ignored my assistance.
The nearer rick-tack of Miss Delora Bunker's typewriter furnished obbligato for the chorus of the looms. It was all good music for a business man. But those muttering, mumbling mayor-chasers it was a tin-can, cow-bell discord in a symphony concert. Mac Tavish, honoring the combat code of Caledonia, required presumption to excuse attack, needed an upthrust head to justify a whack.
"Louis," I said, "is this a great joke, or are you talking to me in sober, serious earnest?" "I am talking in earnest, monsieur," Louis said slowly. "I have not exaggerated or spoken a word to you which is not the truth." "Let me understand this thing a little more clearly," I said. "What has Ferdinand Delora done that he need fear a murderous assault? What has he done to make enemies?
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