Such was Le Bain’s other establishment. For the time paid for it was actually the lessee’s “home”--as much immune from police interference as any other man’s castle. This Le Bain would sublet possibly two or three times a week, possibly once a month, to some one he knew or some one with trustworthy introduction--always at a price commensurate with the extraordinary privacy he supplied. And he never asked questions; particularly did Le Bain prefer to know only the name of the renting host--never of the guests. Then, if anything ever happened there which got to the police,--and it might,--Le Bain would be able to say to interrogating officers that he maintained this place for patrons who wished to give “home dinner parties”--surely a legitimate business enterprise!--and he knew nothing at all about who was there and what they did. When Peter Loveman, at two o’clock in the morning, quickly closed the outside door, slipped along the hallway, and then drew aside the hangings and peered reconnoiteringly into the great dining-room (finished as to walls and ceiling in paneled Flemish oak, lighted by a sunlike chandelier with multitudinous pendants), he saw just what he had expected to see, just what he had so skillfully planned and so adroitly manipulated. About a small, intimate table, food-strewn and wine-stained,--a table almost lost in this great room which could have seated a party of fifty,--sat Nina Cordova, Nan Burdette, Hilton, Jack Morton, and a slight, evilly handsome third man. His people had done their work well, exactly as per instructions, Loveman noted: the servants had obviously been sent away, and Jack was in the desired state of reckless and pliable hilarity. Loveman continued to look in for a moment, hesitating. He would have vastly preferred not to be here--there was too much danger for him. But his clever scheming, whose original outline the interference of Clifford and the uncalculated elements of human nature in Mary Regan had thrown repeatedly into disarray, was now nearing the culmination of what was its latest re-adjustment. Loveman had held back his many-elemented new plan--two big plans they were, in fact--because each was dependent in a degree upon the other. He had not dared act too quickly in the matter of Mary, for such a course might, by some twist of circumstances or human nature, affect Jack, and therefore upset what he had contemplated concerning Jack. To succeed in either he had to succeed in both; and to succeed in both he had to synchronize them. Whether he had done this, the hour or so ahead was to prove.