We left the Salisbury Hotel, Wareham and I, well pleased to find that our suspicions had been unfounded.  Nevertheless the whole conversation of the last hour had left its mark on us; and, for my part, I was in much the same state of mind as in the old days of the siege of Paris, when the spy mania led to so many amusing incidents.  Thus, the circumstance of finding two persons at the corner of Salisbury Square as we left it—­two persons who were speaking in French and who eyed us very suspiciously—­revived my alarm.  They even followed us along Fleet Street towards the Ludgate Circus, and though we dodged them through the cavernous Ludgate Hill Railway Station, across sundry courts and past the stores of Messrs. Spiers and Pond, we again found them waiting for us on our return towards the embankment, determined, so it seemed, to convoy us home.  We hastened our steps and they hastened theirs.  We loitered, they loitered also.  At last Wareham made me dive into a side street and thence into a maze of courts, and though the others seemed bent on following us, we at last managed to give them the slip.

I never saw these men again, but I have retained a strong suspicion that no mere question of coincidence could explain that seeming pursuit.  I take it that the individuals had come over to England on the track of the little French envoy; for it was after he had bidden us good-night outside the Salisbury Hotel that they had turned to follow us.  He had told us, too, that earlier in the evening he had spent a hour smoking and strolling about Salisbury Court whilst anxiously awaiting Wareham’s arrival with his promised answer.  Whether these men were French police spies, whether they were simply members of some swell mob who know that the little gentleman with the huge head and the coal-black hair sometimes journeyed to London with a fortune in diamonds in his possession, must remain a mystery.  As for Wareham and myself, when we had again reached Fleet Street we hailed a passing hansom and drove away to Waterloo.

VIII

OTHER PERSONAL ADVENTURES

I had another alarm a few days later.  Returning one evening by train from Waterloo, I was followed into the compartment I selected by a party of five men, two of whom I recognised.  One was the landlord of the Raynes Park Hotel, now deceased, and the other his son.  Their companions proved to be Frenchmen, which somehow struck me as a curious circumstance.  This was the time when a letter addressed by me to Paris for M. Zola appeared to have gone astray, and when we were therefore rather apprehensive of some action on the part of the French authorities.  Could it be that the two Frenchmen who had followed me into the railway carriage in the company of a local licensed victualler were actually staying at Raynes Park, within half a mile of my home?  And, if so, what could be their purpose?

I remained silent in my corner of the carriage, pretending to read a newspaper; but on glancing up every now and then I fancied that I detected one or another of the Frenchmen eyeing me suspiciously.  They conversed in French, either together or with the landlord’s son—­who spoke their language, I found—­on a variety of commonplace topics until we had passed Earlsfield and were fast approaching Wimbledon.  Then, all at once, one of them inquired of the other:  ’Shall we get out at Wimbledon or Raynes Park?’