For a further ten minutes Roger waited with ever-mounting impatience, then he could smother his half-formed fears no longer, and turning the handle of the shop door pushed it a little open. The shop was empty except for a man in a grey wig who stood behind the counter examining some gems.
Thrusting the door wide, Roger almost fell inside, exclaiming breathlessly: "The Chevalier de Roubec! Where is he? Where has be gone?"
The man in the wig stared at him stupidly for a moment then he said: "What do you mean, Monsieur? The Chevalier De Roubec. I know no one of that name."
"But you must!" insisted Roger wildly. "He came into your shop half an hour, nay, nearly three-quarters of an hour ago, with some gold ornaments that he wished to sell."
"Ah, Monsieur means a tall gentleman, no doubt. A gentleman in a red velvet coat having a scar on his cheek that dragged down the corner of his left eye a little?"
"Yes, yes! That is he!" Roger panted. "Where has he gone to?"
The shopman spread out his hands. "I have no idea, Monsieur. He offered no gold ornaments for sale, but bought a cheap scarf pin for three crowns. Then he asked if he might use the privy out in the yard at the back, and said that when he had done he would leave by the alley on to which the yard abuts. But why is Monsieur so excited? Has he been robbed?"
"No," stammered Roger with sudden visions of a police inquiry which he felt would do him little good and might even land him in further trouble. "No, but I wanted to speak with him most urgently, and he said—he said if I'd wait outside he would attend to my business as soon as he had done with you. How long has he been gone?"
"Half an hour, at least, Monsieur; more by now. He spent but a few moments choosing his pin, then left at once."
"Perchance he was suddenly taken ill and is still out there," Roger suggested, snatching at a wild hope.
"If Monsieur wishes we will go and see," replied the man in the wig, moving out from behind the counter. "But I can hardly think that it is likely to be so."
Together they visited the back of the premises. The earth closet was empty and the gate in the yard which gave on to a narrow alley slightly open. With a heart as heavy as lead Roger realised that it would be futile to attempt a chase. The purchase of the scarf pin alone was enough to convince him that he had been deliberately tricked, and by now the Chevalier might be a mile or more away.
Thanking the jeweller in a subdued voice he accompanied him back to the shop and walked out into the street. The sun was still shining and the gay equipages of the local French nobility still edging past each other in the congested thoroughfare, but he no longer had any eyes for their elegantly clad occupants.
His little fortune was gone, just as surely as if it had dropped overboard when he had been flung from the Albatross into the sea. He was alone and friendless in France. His winnings of the previous night had been eaten up by the money he had been forced to disburse in the brothel, and more with them. With added bitterness he recalled that De Roubec had not paid him back the louis he had lent him to finance his play at Monsieur Tricot's. In one way and another his cash capital had dwindled to only a little over four pounds, and he still had his bill at the inn to settle. Near panic seized him at the sudden, awful thought that he was now stranded in this strange foreign city, and had not even enough, money left to pay for a passage back to England.
CHAPTER IX
THE MAN IN BLUE
SLOWLY and sadly Roger made his way back to Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys. If there had been the faintest hope of catching the Chevalier there, anger and the acute anxiety he was feeling as to his future would have lent wings to his feet, but he knew there was none. De Roubec had now a clear three-quarters of an hour's start and, even if he had returned to the inn to pick up a few belongings, assuming that the irate Roger was certain to make for it as soon as he discovered the fraud that had been put upon him, would have left it again by this time.
As it was it seemed unlikely that the Chevalier had gone back to the inn even for a few moments, or would ever show his face there again. Knowing the man now for the plausible rogue that he was Roger began to see him in an entirely new light. His shoddy finery consorted ill with the tale that he really possessed a handsome wardrobe which had been impounded by a distrustful landlord. His story that he was a scion of a great and wealthy family who had had his pocket picked and was waiting for a lavish remittance was, no doubt, all moonshine. No real gentleman, Roger realised all too late, would be a regular habitue of a low waterside brothel such as the "Widow Scarron's." His anxiety that morning, too, to know if anyone else in Le Havre was aware that Roger was in possession of a hoard of valuable trinkets showed that he had premeditated and deliberately planned the theft.
Yet, badly as he had been taken in, Roger felt that a more experienced person than himself might equally have fallen a victim to the Chevalier's wiles. His face had been a weak rather than vicious one, and he had shown great vivacity, sympathy and apparent generosity; in fact, all the characteristics calculated to win the interest and friendship of a stranger quickly. But that anyone else might have been fooled as easily as himself was little consolation to Roger now.
As he walked on he wondered desperately how he could possibly get back to England, then, swiftly on top of that came the even more distressing question as to what would happen to him if he did succeed in securing a passage across the Channel. Gone were the bright dreams of comfortable lodgings and cutting a fine figure in London. If he got back at all it would be to land there near penniless. It would be a choice then between hedgerows and hard manual labour or going home to eat humble pie before his father; and the thought of being forced to the latter made him almost sob with rage.
On reaching the inn he met the oily Maitre Picard on the doorstep and inquired at once if he had seen the Chevalier during the past hour.
The landlord shook his head. "I've not set eyes on him since he went out with you this morning, Monsieur."
"Has he any other address, or have you any idea where I could find him?" asked Roger.
"No, none, Monsieur. He comes and goes as he lists, that one. He said nothing this morning of leaving, but 'twould not be the first time that he has walked out on me. He is, as you may know, a professional gambler, and often in low water. If I may offer a word of advice. Monsieur, he is not a good companion for a young gentleman like yourself."
"Would that you had said as much before," Roger muttered ruefully.
"Why so," asked Maitre Picard. "Has he then robbed you of something? I have heard tell that he can be light-fingered on occasion."
Visions of a police inquiry with himself held for weeks as a material witness, again flashed before Roger's mind, so he said hastily, "No— at least nothing of great value. Only a pair of shoe buckles that he promised to get valued for me; but they were not of sufficient consequence to make a fuss over. Is it true that you hold his wardrobe as surety for his reckoning?"
"Nay, Monsieur," the landlord smirked, "that is an idle tale. Sometimes he pays before he leaves, at others he settles his old score on the next occasion that he asks for a room. He has worn naught but that old red velvet coat of his since he first came here last Hallowe'en and I'd have thought anyone would have spotted him for a slippery customer."
"Why do you suffer such rogues to lodge at your inn, and mingle with your other guests?" snapped Roger, his temper getting the better of him.
Maitre Picard bridled. "I am a poor man, Monsieur, and cannot afford to turn away a patron without proof that he has actually been dishonest. As for the others, 'tis for them, not me, to mind their purses. And had you been more circumspect in your choice of a companion, doubtless you would still be in possession of your buckles." Upon which he turned huffily away and slouched off through the hall to his quarters at the back of the premises.