Presently this individual came up to him and asked in most unmistakably English terms what Westerham's destination might be. Westerham told the man shortly that his destination was Rouen. “You must excuse me, sir,” said the man, whom Westerham guessed to be a Scotland Yard representative at the port of Dieppe, “but it is rather unusual for gentlemen to travel without luggage and without even so much as an overcoat. It is even more curious,” he added, “when they start on a journey without first taking a ticket.” Westerham surveyed the man coolly with a faintly insolent air. He was coming to realise that whereas in ordinary times the consciousness of his own good faith enabled him to pass every barrier with the superiority born of an easy conscience, it required some brazenness to face obstructions of this sort when he had a desire for secrecy. And the fat man was evidently shrewd. He might take life easily on the quay, and watch with thoughtful and even drowsy eyes the coming and going of innumerable English voyagers, but for all that his alertness only slept, and though he had an instinctive trust of Westerham's face and manner, still he could not deny that appearances were against the Englishman who travelled so unprovided for a journey and with such evident haste. “Of course,” he said apologetically, “you will excuse my being persistent in making inquiries, for, after all, that is only my duty.” “Quite so,” said Westerham, with a genial smile, “and how can I help you to do it?” With some pomposity of manner the English detective produced a fat note-book. “I'm afraid,” he said, “that I must ask you to give me your name.” Westerham smiled a little to himself to think how futile was such a precaution on the man's part. He was at liberty to give him what name he chose; he could give him the first name that came into his head. “I think,” he laughed, “that for safety's sake you had better call me Charles Grey, though how on earth you are to ascertain whether that is my real name or not I confess I cannot see.” The fat detective sucked in his lips and wrote the name laboriously in his book. “After all,” he said, with some asperity, “people who give wrong names and addresses seldom come to any good.” “I suppose not,” said Westerham, and walked a little moodily towards the train. He paid the guard handsomely enough to warrant the man's not forgetting to call him at Rouen. But still Westerham felt that he had so much at stake that he could leave nothing to chance, and so he sat upright, wakeful and watchful, while the train rushed through the apple trees of Normandy to the old cathedral city. When he arrived there it was raining hard, and he was conscious that he was again an object of suspicion as he stood on the steps of the station looking about him in search of a _fiacre_.