"Where can I see Bellamy?" Laverick Inquired, rising and taking up his hat.
"He would go straight to your rooms," she answered. "Did you leave word there where you had gone?"
"Purposely I did not," Laverick replied. "I had better try and find him, perhaps."
"It is not necessary," she announced. "No wonder that you feel yourself to have wandered into the Arabian Nights, Mr. Laverick. There are two sets of spies who follow you everywhere--two sets that I know of. There may be another."
"You think that Bellamy will find me?" he asked.
"I am sure of it."
"Then I'll go back to the hotel and wait."
She hurried him away, but at the door she detained him for a moment.
"Mr. Laverick," she said, looking at him earnestly, "somehow or other I cannot help believing that you are an honest man."
Laverick sighed. He opened his lips but closed them again.
"You are very kind, Mademoiselle," he declared simply.
Laverick, as he entered the reception hall at the Milan Hotel, noticed a man leaning over the cashier's desk talking confidentially to the clerk in charge. The latter recognized Laverick with obvious relief, and at once directed his questioner's attention to him. Kahn turned swiftly around and without a moment's hesitation came smiling towards Laverick with the apparent intention of accosting him. He was correctly garbed, tall and fair, with every appearance of being a man of breeding. He glanced at Laverick carelessly as he passed, but, as though changing his original purpose, made no attempt to address him. The cashier, who had been watching, gave vent to a little exclamation of surprise and sprang over the counter. He approached Laverick hastily.
"Do you know that gentleman just going out, sir?" he asked.
"I never saw him before in my life," Laverick answered. "Why?"
"Is this your handwriting, sir?" the man inquired, touching with his forefinger the half sheet of note-paper which he had been carrying.
Laverick read quickly,-To the Cashier at the Milan Hotel,--Deliver to bearer document deposited with you. STEPHEN LAVERICK.
"It is not," he declared promptly. "It is an impudent forgery. Good God! You don't mean to say that you parted with my property to--"
The cashier stopped his breathless question.
"I haven't parted with anything, sir," he said. "I was just wondering what to do when you came in. I'd no reason to believe that the signature was a forgery, but I didn't like the look of it, somehow. We'd better be after him. Come along, sir."
They hurried outside. The man was nowhere in sight. The cashier summoned the head porter.