Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/70

 CHAPTER VI

THE NEW TENANTS OF RANNOCH

NEXT morning I searched up and down Oxford Street for the Restaurant Milano, but could not find it. I asked shopkeepers, postmen and policemen; I examined the London Directory at the bar of the Oxford Music Hall, and made every inquiry possible. But all was to no purpose, No one knew of such a place. There were restaurants in plenty in Oxford Street, from the Frascati down to the humble coffee-shop, but nobody had ever heard of the "Milano."

Even Olinto had played me false!

I was filled with chagrin, for I had trusted him as honest, upright and industrious; and was puzzled to know the reason he had deceived me, and why he had enticed me to the very brink of the grave.

He had told me that he himself had fallen into the trap laid by my enemies, and yet he had steadfastly refused to tell me who they were! The whole thing was utterly inexplicable.

I drove over to Lambeth and wandered through the maze of mean streets off the York Road, yet for the life of me I could not decide into which house I had been taken. There were a dozen which