Dijon.
Concealing himself as best he could, the doctor walked rapidly to the head
of the train. There, assuming the character of a timid old man, he [126]
implored the driver, with the gift of the bewitched "cart-wheel," to be sure to
drive carefully. He would drink the good fellow's health, to be sure — what
name? Oh! Marcel Dufour. "Of the furnace — that is appropriate!" laughed
the genial passenger, apparently reassured as to his security.
But he did not enter the train. He dashed out of the station, and into a
motor-cab, overjoyed to return to Douglas with so clean a record of work
accomplished.
He never gave the Turk another thought.
But Akbar Pasha had had an idea. Balloch had taken a ticket for Dijon —
he would take one, too. And he would go — he would retrieve his error of
yesterday. He was not in the least afraid of that cub Grey, when Simon Iff
was not there to back him. It would go hard, but he should get a drop of Lisa's
blood — if he had to bribe the wagon-lit man. Then — who knows? — there
might even be a chance to kill Grey. He waited till the last moment before he
boarded the train.
The train would stop at Moret-les-Sablons; by that time the beds would be
made up; he would have plenty of time to act; he could go on to Rome if
necessary.
Cyril Grey, away from the influence of Simon Iff, had become the sarcastic
sphinx once more. He was wearing a travelling suit with knickerbockers, but
he still affected the ultra-pontifical diplomatist.
"The upholstery of these cars is revolting," he said to Lisa, with a glance of
disgust. And he suddenly opened the door away from the platform and lifted
her on to the permanent way; thence into a stuffy compartment in the train
that was standing at the next "Voie."
"A frosty moonlight night like this," he said, pulling a large black pipe
from his pocket and filling [127] it, "indicates (to romantic lovers like
ourselves) the propriety of a descent at Moret, a walk to Barbizon through the
forest, a return to Moret by a similar route in a day or so, and the pursuance
of our journey to Naples. See Naples and die!" he added musingly,
"decidedly a superior programme."
Lisa would have listened to a proposition to begin their travels by
swimming the Seine, on the ground that the day after to-morrow would be
Friday; so she raised no objection. But she could not help saying that they