“Of course, of course!  At nine o’clock at Piccadilly Circus?”

“Exactly.”

M. Gaston, this business satisfactorily completed, made his way to his own room by a somewhat devious route, not wishing to encounter anyone of his numerous acquaintances whilst in an apparent state of ill-health so calculated to excite compassion.  He avoided the lift and ascended the many stairs to his small apartment.

Here he rectified the sallowness of his complexion, which was due, not to outraged nature, but to the arts of make-up.  His dilated pupils (a phenomenon traceable to drops of belladonna) he was compelled to suffer for the present; but since their condition tended temporarily to impair his sight, he determined to remain in his room until the time for the appointment with Gianapolis.

“So!” he muttered—­“we have branches in Europe, Asia, Africa and America!  Eh, bien! to find all those would occupy five hundred detectives for a whole year.  I have a better plan:  crush the spider and the winds of heaven will disperse his web!”

XXIX

M. MAX OF LONDON AND M. MAX OF PARIS

He seated himself in a cane armchair and, whilst the facts were fresh in his memory, made elaborate notes upon the recent conversation with the Greek.  He had achieved almost more than he could have hoped for; but, knowing something of the elaborate organization of the opium group, he recognized that he owed some part of his information to the sense of security which this admirably conducted machine inspired in its mechanics.  The introduction from Sir Brian Malpas had worked wonders, without doubt; and his own intimate knowledge of the establishment adjoining the Boulevard Beaumarchais, far from arousing the suspicions of Gianapolis, had evidently strengthened the latter’s conviction that he had to deal with a confirmed opium slave.

The French detective congratulated himself upon the completeness of his Paris operation.  It was evident that the French police had succeeded in suppressing all communication between the detained members of the Rue St. Claude den and the head office—­which he shrewdly suspected to be situated in London.  So confident were the group in the self-contained properties of each of their branches that the raid of any one establishment meant for them nothing more than a temporary financial loss.  Failing the clue supplied by the draft on Paris, the case, so far as he was concerned, indeed, must have terminated with the raiding of the opium house.  He reflected that he owed that precious discovery primarily to the promptness with which he had conducted the raid—­to the finding of the letter (the one incriminating letter) from Mr. King.

Evidently the group remained in ignorance of the fact that the little arrangement at the Credit Lyonnais had been discovered.  He surveyed—­and his eyes twinkled humorously—­a small photograph which was contained in his writing-case.