Really, of all the obvious, the dry-as-dust,
hunt-your-criminal-by-rule-of-three kind of people I ever met,
the class of detective to which this man belongs can produce the
most blatant examples."
"What are you going to do about him?" Francis asked.
Sir Timothy shrugged his shoulders.
"I have not yet made up my mind," he said. "I happen to know
that he has been laying his plans for weeks to get here,
frequenting Soto's and other restaurants, and scraping
acquaintances with some of my friends. The Duke of Tadchester
brought him--won a few hundreds from him at baccarat, I suppose.
His grace will never again find these doors open to him."
Francis' attention had wandered. He was gazing fixedly at the
man whom Sir Timothy had pointed out.
"You still do not fully recognise our friend," the latter
observed carelessly. "He calls himself Manuel Loito, and he
professes to be a Cuban. His real name I understood, when you
introduced us, to be Shopland."
"Great heavens, so it is!" Francis exclaimed.
"Let us leave him to his precarious pleasures," Sir Timothy
suggested. "I am free for a few moments. We will wander round
together."
They found Lady Cynthia and Wilmore, and looked in at the
supper-room, where people were waiting now for tables, a babel of
sound and gaiety.
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