Baumann, a middle-aged, stockish Alsatian, long since settled in Algeria, to whom this Bar seemed the very epitome of devil-may-care luxury and pleasure, surveyed the Captain of Chasseurs with deference.

“It is gay here,” he said with a smile. “Life, my Captain, the life of Paris and the Boulevards. You want to speak to me? Yes? We shall be quieter here.”

He turned back with almost a sigh of regret to the boarded verandah under the vines. To Gerard the verandah was a relief. Here at all events it was cool and dark, and the piano did not thump upon the brain with so exasperating a poignancy. There was a table empty at the end where a couple of steps led down into a dark garden.

“Let us sit here!” said Gerard, and when the three were seated and the drinks ordered from a person of indefinable nationality dressed up as a Turk, he leaned forward.

“You have news of Paul Ravenel?”

“News? I couldn’t say as much as that,” replied Baumann. “I was at Meknes when the thing occurred, before Meknes had declared for its new patent Pretender. It’s five months ago.”

Baumann checked his speech and looked over Gerard’s shoulder intently into the dark garden. Gerard was sitting by the edge of the verandah, with his face turned eagerly towards Baumann.

“What’s the matter?” Gerard asked impatiently.

“Nothing, I think. Nothing really.”

But nevertheless Baumann appeared a little uneasy and his eyes still held their gaze in the same direction. Ratenay turned. At the first he could see nothing to account for the alertness which had come so swiftly into Baumann’s face. Then he made out a black figure sitting or crouching upon the low edge of the verandah some way behind Gerard de Montignac, just in the edge of the lights, and more in shadow than in light. Gerard had not moved by so much as the twitch of a limb. He rapped, however, now upon the iron table with his knuckles.

“Come, Baumann!” he said sharply. “You were at Meknes five months ago. Well!”

“I had finished my business,” Baumann replied hurriedly, but speaking in a lower voice than he had used before. “I was on my way back to Rabat by the plain of the Sebou. You know how the track runs from Meknes, due north over rolling country, then along the flank of the Zarhoun mountain to a pass.”

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