Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/196

178 head. Another thing that helped was the fact that these preachers often wear shaded goggles, having formed the habit out in the colonies. It's a great point in favour of a man disguised to have his eyes screened. There are fine subtle lines of expression around a man's eyes that are almost impossible to control at all times.

Well, sir, I stuck a little hand-mirror in the crotch of a bush and got to work. The skin was brown enough as a consequence of the Cayenne health resort and of being so much on the road in motors. Then I ran the clippers over my head.

All rigged out, and with a tweed knickerbocker suit underneath the long black soutane, a grimy black valise in one hand and a big cotton umbrella in the other, I walked over to St. Germain and bought a third-class ticket for Paris. My plan was to get a little room up in Passy, giving it out to any neighbours who might be curious that I was studying English. Then as soon as I was settled I would get to work to locate Chu-Chu; and this might be a hard job, or, again, it might not, depending on how much he was afraid of me.

It was possible that Chu-Chu, trusting to his reputation as the most dangerous man in Europe when it came to the settling of a score, might think that I had lost my nerve and skipped the country. But, considering the fact that I had made such a good try for him on the road to Boulogne, the chances were that he would be convinced that my heart was in my work, and would get under cover himself.

It might seem on the face of it like a pretty hopeless sort of job, combing a big city for a man whom