"Now I wonder," said Brett, "why the Turks left the Frenchman alone in No. 11. It is odd, to say the least of it. Since the dramatic discovery of the spurious diamonds this morning they must be even more in the dark than I am. It must be looked into, but I cannot attend to it now. At this moment, if I am not mistaken, the centre of interest is the Café Noir." The two men occupied a sitting-room on the first floor of the hotel, and their respective bedrooms flanked it on each side. Brett explained that he could not tackle the table d'hote dinner, so he made a hasty meal in their sitting-room and then excused himself whilst he retired to his bedroom to change his clothing. He was absent some twenty minutes, and Fairholme amused himself by glancing over the copies of the day's London newspapers which had recently arrived. Suddenly the door of Brett's bedroom opened, and a decrepit elderly man appeared, a shabby-genteel individual, disfigured by drink and crumpled up by rheumatism. "Who the devil----" began Fairholme. But he was amazed to hear Brett's familiar voice asking-- "Do you think the disguise sufficiently complete?" "Complete!" shouted Fairholme, "why, your own mother would not know you, and your father would probably punch me for suggesting that it could be you." "That is all right," said the barrister cheerfully. "I will now proceed to get quietly drunk at the Café Noir. Good-bye until seven o'clock to-morrow morning--perhaps earlier, and perhaps--well, no--until seven o'clock!" They shook hands and parted, and not even Brett, the cleverest amateur detective of his day, could have remotely guessed where and how they would meet next. Montmartre by day and Montmartre by night are two very different places. This Parisian playground, perched high on the eminence that overlooks the Ville Lumière, does not wake to its real life until its repose is disturbed by the lamplighter. Then the Moulin Rouge, festooned with lamps of gorgeous red, flares forth upon an expectant world. The Café de l'Enfers opens its demoniac mouth to swallow ten minutes' audiences and vomit them forth again, amused or bored, as the case may be, by the delusions provided in the interior, whilst other questionable resorts shout forth their attractions and seek to beguile a certain number of sous from the pockets of sightseers. The whole district is a place of light and shade. It is artificial in every brick and stone, in the pose of every stall, the lettering of every advertisement. And it flourishes by gaslight; by day it is garish and forlorn.