He turned to look after his scanty baggage with a sigh. How different it would all have been if he had chosen some other route to his Brooklyn boarding-house on the eventful night when the plausible Jevons had waylaid him! All would have been plain sailing, and he could have asked Leonie with a clear conscience to share his new-found honors and wealth. As it was he stood committed to a felonious enterprise which would fill her with contempt and loathing did she know of it; though, if he abandoned it, instinct told him he was a doomed man. The sight of the insignificant spy Marker lurking behind a pile of luggage reminded him that his peril might commence at any moment if he showed any sign of inconstancy to his pledge. Not that he anticipated trouble from the covert-coated whippersnapper himself; but the mere fact of it having been thought worth while to shadow him across the Atlantic spelled danger, and suggested an organization that would stop at nothing to safeguard itself. However, he had made up his mind to call on the mysterious Ziegler, and by doing so at once he might prove his fidelity and secure a respite from this unpleasant espionage. Summoning a hansom, he bade the driver take him to the Hotel Cecil, and looking back he saw Marker following in another cab. In the few minutes that elapsed before he was driven into the courtyard of the palatial hotel he settled a problem that had been vexing him not a little during the voyage. Should he introduce himself to Ziegler as the Duke of Beaumanoir or as plain Charles Hanbury, the name by which he had been "engaged"? If he was for a brief space to be the consort of professional thieves, he would prefer to lead a double life—to perform his misdeeds as a commoner, and to keep his dukedom spotless. So it was that he gave his name as Hanbury to the clerk in the bureau of the hotel. While waiting the return of the bell-boy who was sent to announce his arrival, Beaumanoir looked about for Marker, but the spy was nowhere visible in or from the entrance-hall. Having shepherded him to the fold, it was evidently no part of his duty to obtrude himself till further orders. A minute later the neophyte in crime was limping up the grand staircase in wake of the bell-boy, who conducted him to one of the best private suites on the first floor overlooking the Embankment. It was a moment charged with electricity as the Duke of Beaumanoir found himself face to face with the man who had hired him in his poverty, and now held him fetter-bound in his good fortune.