Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/274



T WAS seven in the morning when Henry Gramont drove his car into Houma.

In the wire which he had sent over Chacherre's signature he had commanded Dick Hearne to meet Gramont at about this time at a restaurant near the court house. Putting his car at the curb, Gramont went into the restaurant and ordered a hasty breakfast. He had brought with him copies of the morning papers, and was perusing the accounts of Bob Maillard's pitifully weak story regarding his father's murder, when a stranger stopped beside him.

"Gramont?" said the other. "Thought it was you. Hearne's my name—I had orders to meet you. What's up?"

The other man dropped into the chair opposite Gramont, who put away his papers. Hearne was a sleek individual of pasty complexion who evidently served the gang 262