Part 35 (2/2)

”Two I sent to the Travellers' Club, here. Another I sent to the Hotel de France, in Petersburg.”

”Ah! I was at the Europe,” he laughed. ”I find their cooking better.

Their sterlet is even better than the Hermitage at Moscow. Jules, the chef, was at Cubat's, in the Nevski, for years.”

Pennington always gauged a hotel by the excellence of its chef. He told us of tiny obscure places in Italy which he knew, where the rooms were carpetless and comfortless, but where the cooking could vie with the Savoy or Carlton in London. He mentioned the Giaponne in Leghorn, the Tazza d'Oro in Lucca, and the Vapore in Venice, of all three of which I had had experience, and I fully corroborated what he said. He was a man who ate his strawberries with a quarter of a liqueur-gla.s.s of maraschino thrown over them, and a slight addition of pepper, and he always mixed his salads himself.

”Perhaps you think me very whimsical,” he laughed across the table, ”but really, good cooking makes so much difference to life.”

I told him that, as an Englishman, I preferred plainly-cooked food.

”Which is usually heavy and indigestible, I fear,” he declared. ”What, now, could be more indigestible than our English roast beef and plum pudding--eh?”

My own thoughts were, however, running in an entirely different channel, and when presently Sylvia, who looked a delightful picture in ivory chiffon, and wearing the diamond necklet I had given her as one of her wedding presents, rose and left us to our cigars, I said suddenly--

”I say, Pennington, do you happen to know a stout, grey-bearded Frenchman who wears gold-rimmed gla.s.ses--a man named Pierre Delanne?”

”Delanne?” he repeated. ”No, I don't recollect the name.”

”I saw him in Manchester,” I exclaimed. ”He was at the Midland, and said he knew you--and also Sylvia.”

”In Manchester! Was he at the Midland while I was there?”

”Yes. He was dressed in black, with a silk hat and wore on his finger a great amethyst ring--a rather vulgar-looking ornament.”

Pennington's lips were instantly pressed together.

”Ah!” he exclaimed, almost with a start, ”I think I know who you mean. His beard is pointed, and his eyes rather small and s.h.i.+ning. He has the air of a bon-vivant, and speaks English extremely well. He wears the amethyst on the little finger of his left hand.”

”Exactly.”

”And, to you, he called himself Pierre Delanne, eh?”

”Yes. What is his real name, then?”

”Who knows? I've heard that he uses half-a-dozen different aliases,”

replied my father-in-law.

”Then you know him?”

”Well--not very well,” was Pennington's response in a rather strange voice, I thought. ”Did he say anything regarding myself?”

”Only that he had seen you in Manchester.”

”When did you see him last?”

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