As Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos was himself again, and as I began to sneeze—­for the night was chilly—­I rose and suggested that we might adjourn this conference till the morrow.  He acquiesced, saying that all was not lost and that he still had time to mature his combinations.  We crossed the road, and I hailed a cab standing by the Cafe d’Alger.  I offered Anastasius to drive him to his hotel, but he declined politely.  We shook hands.

“Monsieur,” said he, “I have to make my heartfelt apologies for having caused you so painful, so useless, and so expensive an evening.  As for the last aspect I will repay you.”

“You will do no such thing, Professor,” said I.  “My evening has, on the contrary, been particularly useful and instructive.  I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

And I drove off homewards, glad to be in my own company.

Here was an imbroglio!  The missing husband found and, like most missing husbands, found to be entirely undesirable.  And Lola, obviously imagining her summons to be from me, was at that moment speeding hither as fast as the Marechal Bugeaud could carry her.  If I had discovered Captain Vauvenarde instead of Anastasius I would have anathematised him as the most meddlesome, crazy little marplot that ever looked like Napoleon the Third.  But as the credit of the discovery belonged to him and not to me, I could only anathematise myself for my dilettanteism in the capacity of a private inquiry agent.

I went to bed and slept badly.  The ludicrous scenes of the evening danced before my eyes; the smoke-filled, sordid room, the ignoble faces round the table, the foolish hullaballoo, the collapse of Anastasius, my melodramatic intervention, and the ironical courtesy of the fleshy Captain Vauvenarde.  Also, in the small hours of the night, Anastasius’s gigantic combinations assumed a less trivial aspect.  What lunatic scheme was being hatched behind that dome-like brow?  His object in taking me to the club was obvious.  He could not have got in save under my protection.  But what he had reckoned upon doing when he got there Heaven and Anastasius Papadopoulos only knew.  I was also worried by the confounded little pain inside.

On the following afternoon I went down to meet the steamer from Marseilles.  I more than expected to find the dwarf on the quay, but to my relief he was not there.  I had purposely kept my knowledge of Lola’s movements a secret from him, as I desired as far as possible to conduct affairs without his crazy intervention.  I was not sorry, too, that he had not availed himself of my proposal to visit me that morning and continue our conversation of the night before.  The grotesque as a decoration of life is valuable; as the main feature it gets on your nerves.