100 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
Monsieur Feccles, the manager said, had left that
morning suddenly. Yes, he had left his heavy baggage.
He might be back at any moment. No, he had left
no word as to where he was going.
Well, of course, he would be back on Saturday
morning to get the five thousand. It was obvious
what I was to do. I would leave the money for him,
and take the manager’s receipt, and tell him to send
the papers on to the Caligula at Capri.
I started to count out the cash. We were sitting in
the lounge. A sense of absolute bewilderment and
helplessness came over me.
“TI say, Lou,’ I stammered, “I wish you'd count
this. I can’t make it come right. I think I must have
been going a bit too hard.”
She went through the various pockets of my porte-
feuille.
‘““Haven’t you some money in your pocket?” she
said.
I went through myself with sudden anxiety. I had
money in nearly every pocket ; but it only amounted
to so much small change. A thousand francs here and
a hundred francs there, a fifty-pound note in my waist-
coat, a lot of small billsk——
In the meanwhile, Lou had added up the contents
of my porte-feuille. The total was just over seventeen
hundred.
“My God! I’ve been robbed,” I gasped out, my
face flushing furiously with anger.
Lou kept her head and her temper. After all, it
wasn’t her money! She began to figure on a scrap of
the hotel note paper.
“T’m afraid it’s all right,”” she announced, “‘ you
dear, bad boy.”
I had become suddenly’ sober. Yes, there was
nothing wrong with the figures. I had paid cash to
the jeweller without thinking.
By Jove, we were in a hole! I felt instinctively that
it was impossible to telegraph to Wolfe for more money.