After their dinner was over, they sat and smoked to the accompaniment of another bottle of white wine. Grewgus was not keen on spirits. They had promised to wait a couple of hours there in case Simmons had anything to report, and they were as comfortable here as they would have been in their hotel, more so perhaps. During this period of waiting, Grewgus entertained his host with some more thrilling stories of crooks and crookdom. Lydon found himself much interested. Before he met this reminiscent person he had no idea that there was so much rascality in the world. According to Grewgus, every big city was teeming with it. On the whole, for what he called aristocratic crookdom he was inclined to give the palm to Nice, “where our friend Miss Mayhew appears to hail from,” he observed with a sardonic chuckle. “She’s a member of some foreign gang, I suppose?” suggested Lydon. “She has a foreign look about her, although I heard her mother was an Englishwoman, apparently an English Jewess.” Grewgus shook his head. “I should rather fancy an international one. Whitehouse is mixed up with her; we can’t assume him to be ignorant of his niece’s activities, if she is really his niece. Then there is the man Edwards, and of course Stormont, upon whose business she is here, according to that letter. Three Englishmen, you see. Decidedly an international gang by that.” “What is your reading of it so far, Mr. Grewgus?” “Well, we can’t say positively till I’ve found out what her game is here. But I should say she is one of the working members of the gang, and Edwards is another. Whitehouse and his friend are probably the controlling spirits who plan and engineer but never come into the open, never execute the dirty work.” A few minutes before the two hours had expired, Simmons bustled in with an air of importance that told he had something of interest to communicate. It was briefly this. Mother and daughter had returned to the hotel alone, an hour after they left it. The mother had gone upstairs; Miss Glenthorne had sat in the hall, evidently waiting for somebody. That somebody presently turned up in the shape of an opulent-looking Frenchman, thickly bearded and of middle age. The couple left together and drove to one of the most expensive restaurants in Paris. Simmons followed them into the expensive restaurant, and had his dinner there, conceiving it to be his duty to spend money in order to watch them. From the waiter who attended on him, he learned that the Frenchman was an old customer, and a wealthy man. He was a partner in the big firm of jewellers, Dubost Frères, located in Marseilles. Every three months he made a trip to Paris to have dealings with firms in the same line of business. On these occasions, the waiter had been told, he brought with him several samples worth thousands of pounds. His name was Monsieur Léon Calliard.