The Dark Star

"Pardon, monsieur?" he said politely.

"Can't you even pick a Frenchman, Ben?" sneered one of the men

opposite--a square, smoothly shaven man with slow, heavy-lidded eyes

of a greenish tinge.

The fox-faced man said: "He had me fooled, too, Eddie. If Ben Stull didn't get his number it

don't surprise me none, becuz he was on the damn boat I crossed in,

and I certainly picked him for New York."

"Aw," said the pasty-faced little man referred to as Ben Stull, "Eddie

knows it all. He never makes no breaks, of course. You make 'em, Doc,

but he doesn't. That's why me and him and you is travelling here--this

minute--because the great Eddie Brandes never makes no breaks----"

"Go on and smoke and shut up," said Brandes, with a slow, sidewise

glance at Neeland, whose eyes remained fastened on the pages of "Les

Bizarettes," but whose ears were now very wide open.

"Smoke," repeated Stull, "when this here Frenchman may make a

holler?"

"Wait till I ask him," said the man addressed as Doc, with dignity.

And to Neeland: "Pardong, musseer, permitty vous moi de fumy ung cigar?"

"Mais comment, donc, monsieur! Je vous en prie----"

"He says politely," translated Doc, "that we can smoke and be damned

to us."

They lighted three obese cigars; Neeland, his eyes on his page,

listened attentively and stole a glance at the man they called

Brandes.

So this was the scoundrel who had attempted to deceive the young girl

who had come to him that night in his studio, bewildered with what she

believed to be her hopeless disgrace!

This was the man--this short, square, round-faced individual with his

minutely shaven face and slow greenish eyes, and his hair combed back

and still reeking with perfumed tonic--this shiny, scented, and

overgroomed sport with rings on his fat, blunt fingers and the silk

laces on his tan oxfords as fastidiously tied as though a valet had

done it!

Ben Stull began to speak; and presently Neeland discovered that the

fox-faced man's name was Doc Curfoot; that he had just arrived from

London on receipt of a telegram from them; and that they themselves

had landed the night before from a transatlantic liner to await him

here.

Doc Curfoot checked the conversation, which was becoming general now,

saying that they'd better be very sure that the man opposite

understood no English before they became careless.

"Musseer," he added suavely to Neeland, who looked up with a polite

smile, "parly voo Anglay?"

"Je parle Français, monsieur."

"I get him," said Stull, sourly. "I knew it anyway. He's got the sissy

manners of a Frenchy, even if he don't look the part. No white man

tips his lid to nobody except a swell skirt."

"I seen two dudes do it to each other on Fifth Avenue," remarked

Curfoot, and spat from the window.