I do not know why I made my enquiry as casual as possible. “Does Mr. Strickland live here by any chance?” I asked. “Number thirty-two. On the sixth floor.” I was so surprised that for a moment I did not answer. “Is he in?” The waiter looked at a board in the _bureau._ “He hasn’t left his key. Go up and you’ll see.” I thought it as well to put one more question. _“Madame est là?”_ _“Monsieur est seul.”_ The waiter looked at me suspiciously as I made my way upstairs. They were dark and airless. There was a foul and musty smell. Three flights up a Woman in a dressing-gown, with touzled hair, opened a door and looked at me silently as I passed. At length I reached the sixth floor, and knocked at the door numbered thirty-two. There was a sound within, and the door was partly opened. Charles Strickland stood before me. He uttered not a word. He evidently did not know me. I told him my name. I tried my best to assume an airy manner. “You don’t remember me. I had the pleasure of dining with you last July.” “Come in,” he said cheerily. “I’m delighted to see you. Take a pew.” I entered. It was a very small room, overcrowded with furniture of the style which the French know as Louis Philippe. There was a large wooden bedstead on which was a billowing red eiderdown, and there was a large wardrobe, a round table, a very small washstand, and two stuffed chairs covered with red rep. Everything was dirty and shabby. There was no sign of the abandoned luxury that Colonel MacAndrew had so confidently described. Strickland threw on the floor the clothes that burdened one of the chairs, and I sat down on it. “What can I do for you?” he asked. In that small room he seemed even bigger than I remembered him. He wore an old Norfolk jacket, and he had not shaved for several days. When last I saw him he was spruce enough, but he looked ill at ease: now, untidy and ill-kempt, he looked perfectly at home. I did not know how he would take the remark I had prepared. “I’ve come to see you on behalf of your wife.” “I was just going out to have a drink before dinner. You’d better come too. Do you like absinthe?” “I can drink it.” “Come on, then.” He put on a bowler hat much in need of brushing. “We might dine together. You owe me a dinner, you know.” “Certainly. Are you alone?” I flattered myself that I had got in that important question very naturally. “Oh yes. In point of fact I’ve not spoken to a soul for three days. My French isn’t exactly brilliant.” I wondered as I preceded him downstairs what had happened to the little lady in the tea-shop. Had they quarrelled already, or was his infatuation passed? It seemed hardly likely if, as appeared, he had been taking steps for a year to make his desperate plunge. We walked to the Avenue de Clichy, and sat down at one of the tables on the pavement of a large café. Chapter XII