The elderly man had pulled out his watch, but he was not looking at it. He held it in the palm of his hand and the girl was gazing at it over his shoulder. She nodded and, turning from the table without a word, walked quickly away.
Gregory knew that it was just on midnight and, as he watched the receding figure, so graceful in its sheath of heavy silk, he paused to wonder just what lay behind that little act. He was certain that neither of the two had spoken. Was the old man sending her somewhere or reminding her of an appointment? Anyway, she was just leaving the sale and alone!
The temptation was too much for Gregory. True, he had only a dozen hours or so before he must pack and catch his boat but much could be done in a dozen hours. With a long loping stride he made his way to the entresalle.
Before she appeared in her wraps he had already collected his light coat and dark soft hat and had a taxi waiting a few yards from the entrance of the casino.
Too old a bird to attempt to speak to her, he watched, a little surprised that no car was waiting to pick her up, as she walked down the steps and turned to the south along the gardens which fringed the plage. He gave her about five minutes' start, then boarded his taxi, giving the man precise instructions in fluent French.
The taxi slid along the asphalt road, easing down to a crawl when the lady once more came in sight. A moment later she turned round the far corner of the Normandie. The taxi speeded up until it came level with the corner. Gregory peered out. Opposite the Deauville branch of the famous jewellers, Van Cleffe et Appel, situated in the side of the Normandie Hotel, stood a large limousine. The girl was just getting in.
'Follow that car,' said Gregory softly to his driver, and then sat back again.
The limousine ran silently through the almost deserted streets, crossed the little Place with its now darkened bars, dress shops, and confisserie, then took the road to Trouville. The parent town, once fashionable in its own right but now, as Margate is to Cliftonviile, the holiday resort of greater but less wealthy crowds, lay only a mile or so away, and their route ran through the suburbs which connect the two.
At Trouville Harbour the limousine halted. The taxi pulled up in the shadow of some buildings two hundred yards behind. Gregory turned up the collar of his coat to hide his white shirtfront and with his soft hat pulled well down to conceal his face leaned out of the window.
The girl had descended from her car and evidently dismissed it; for the limousine swung about and sped back towards the big villas and great hotels along the Deauville plage.
A man came forward from behind the deserted customs shed. Quiet greetings were exchanged. The girl called a solitary taxi that still lingered on the rank. She pushed the man in before her and bent forward to whisper an address to the driver then she too got in and the taxi moved off towards the centre of the town. Gregory sat back and his taxi followed.
For a few moments they wound in and out the old-fashioned twisting streets, then Gregory's taxi pulled up once more. The other stood some way along a narrow turning outside a lighted doorway. The man and the girl were getting out. Gregory could see now that the man was hatless and wore breeches topped by a leather airman's coat.
'Stay here,' he ordered as he stepped down into the street, softly closing the door of his cab behind him. The driver grinned. 'C'est une maison de passe, M’sieur. L’autre a de la chance ce soir.'
'Thank you for nothing,' Gregory snapped. Then he smiled resignedly. 'C'est la fortune de guerre' he translated the English idiom literally but incorrectly for the driver's benefit. It did not always suit him to draw attention to his proficiency in foreign languages; then, being a very thorough person, he took the trouble to walk quietly down the street to verify his taxi man’s statement.
The other taxi, now paid off, had driven on. The place seemed to be a cheap cafe open to the street. A few night birds were sitting silent, with drinks before them, at the little tables. The girl and the man were not among them but Gregory's quick eye had immediately noted a side door giving separate entrance from the street to the rooms above. He shrugged his slightly stooping shoulders impatiently. What an ass he had been to bother. The girl was a cocotte all right, and this was undoubtedly a 'house of accommodation'. It surprised him a little that so gloriously lovely a lady should consent to meet her lover in a sordid joint, but he knew well enough that women care nothing for such things if they happen to have got the great madness for a particular man. The old chap might be running her but obviously she was of the type who insist on having their freedom at certain times, and this was one of them.
He was just about to turn away when a sharp cry came from the room above the cafe. It was a little muffled by the thick window curtains, through which chinks of light filtered, but Gregory's ears were almost abnormally keen that night.
A sudden grin spread over his lean face. In three strides he had crossed the narrow street. His raised foot crashed against the flimsy lock and the private door to the rooms above swung open with a bang.
Crouched like a leopard, he raced up the narrow flight of stairs, dashed across the landing, and flung his weight against the only door beneath which there appeared a streak of light.
The room was not the cabinet particulier which he had expected but almost a replica of the cafe below. In one comer four men were writhing in a struggling heap. Three wore the blue cotton blouses of French dock labourers. The fourth, who lay beneath them, was the fellow in the airman's coat. The girl stood nearby with distended eyes, her hands gripping the sides of a little table over which she leaned, apparently too paralysed by fear to scream.
The situation would have been clear to a dullard's eye so Gregory wasted no time in thought. Seizing a bottle from a nearby table, he knocked it sharply against the wall, smashing off the punt. Then, waving the jagged end, the ugliest weapon in the world, he sailed into the fray.
2
The Coded Telegram
As Gregory leapt he saw a knife flash in the hand of one of the thugs. For a second it looked as if the vicious stroke would pin the young man to the floor, but Gregory struck with all his force. The jagged bottle bit through the flimsy covering of the dock rat's shoulder and into the grimy flesh beneath. With a sudden scream he dropped his knife and clutched at the torn and bleeding muscle.
The other two swung round, still crouching in the comer over the prostrate man, to face Gregory. With his free hand he seized a chair and flung it just as the nearest was about to spring. It caught the man below the knees. He staggered wildly, grabbed at a frail table and went down with it on top of him. The other whipped out a knife and, with a quick twist which Gregory recognised in sudden fear as the manner of the expert, drew back his arm to throw it.
But they had all reckoned without the man in the airman's jacket. He was a hefty fellow, well over six feet tall, and broad in proportion. Despite his recent gruelling, it seemed that he had plenty of fight left in him for his muscular hand closed like a vice round the ankle of the knife thrower and, with a violent jerk, he brought him crashing to the floor.
Then he scrambled to his feet, pushed the girl roughly from his path, gasped out 'Thanks a lot' to Gregory, and dashed from the room.