Lavendale found it hard to forgive himself later for the impulse which prompted his answer. The temptation, however, was irresistible.
'I have no need to put them together to know the source of your message,' he replied.
'No?' Mr. Kessner remarked politely, as he lingered for a moment over adjusting Suzanne's coat. 'There are a good many millions of people in London, are there not? Shall I give you a hundred thousand to one against naming the writer?'
'In dollars, if you like,' Lavendale replied carelessly. 'I won't take your money, but I'll start, then, with Baron Niko Komashi.'
Mr. Kessner, who had half turned away, watching the result of his attentions to Suzanne, became suddenly motionless. His lips were a little parted, he seemed almost paralysed. When he turned slowly around there was a new look in his eyes. Courlander, on the other hand, did not attempt to restrain an exclamation of wonder.
'Baron Niko Komashi,' Kessner repeated. 'Who is he?'
Lavendale laughed easily. He was already bitterly regretting his momentary lapse.
'Heaven knows!' he exclaimed. 'The odds dazzled me.'
They walked out to the car almost in silence. A new spirit seemed to have come to Kessner. He looked and talked differently throughout the rest of the evening's entertainment. He seemed somehow to have lost his air of half bantering confidence. When the time came for farewells, he looked long and earnestly into Lavendale's face.
'We must know one another better, young man,' was all he said....
On their way back to her rooms, Suzanne gripped Lavendale by the arm and asked him a question.
'What does it all mean?' she demanded. 'Why did you guess Niko? Why were they both so thunderstruck?'
'Because,' he replied, 'Niko happened to be the writer of that little epistle.'
Her large eyes gleamed at him through the semi-darkness, filled with wonder.
'It is your responsibility,' he explained. 'I noticed the perfume directly he drew the note from the envelope.'
She laughed softly--softly at first and then heartily.
'Why, it is most amusing!' she exclaimed. 'He thinks you a necromancer. He is, I believe, a little afraid of you. And that other man, all through the performance he scarcely took his eyes off you.'
'At any rate,' Lavendale observed, 'it has given me something to think about.'