"Any place will do," said Roger. "Why not this?" and he pointed to the door of a seedy-looking private hotel, over which a lamp burned with the legend--"Night porter in attendance."
The tutor surveyed the house curiously through his and then said--
"Quite so; I stayed here once before," and rang the bell.
The door was opened by a person of whose nationality there could be little doubt, particularly when, after a momentary inspection of his belated guests, he uttered an exclamation of joy and accosted the tutor--
"_Mon ami_! Oh! I am glad to see you, my good friend. Friend of my _pauvre pere_!--friend of my youth! It is you. Ah, Monsieur!" added he, addressing Roger, "for your friend's sake you are welcome. _Entrez_!"
"Be quiet now, Gustav," said the tutor. "Bring us come coffee in the coffee-room, if you can get it made, and light a fire in the bedroom. We will talk in the morning."
Gustav gesticulated delighted acquiescence in any demand his hero made, and ushered them into the coffee-room.
"What a queer fellow!" said Roger when he had vanished in search of the coffee.
"Queer but good-hearted fellow is Gustav," said the tutor. "I have known him a long time; to-morrow I'll tell you-- Hullo!"
There was but a single candle in the room, and by its dim light, and that of the half-expired fire, they had not at first been able to see that they were not the sole occupants of the apartment. On the sofa lay curled the figure of a man breathing heavily, and, to judge by the spirit-bottle and glasses on the table at his hand, expiating a carouse by a disturbed and feverished slumber.
The tutor raised the candle so that the light fell more clearly on the sleeper. Something in the figure had struck him. The man lay with his face turned towards them. He was stylishly though cheaply dressed. His age may have been forty, and his features were half obscured by a profuse and unkempt sandy beard. This was not what had struck the tutor. In his frequent turnings and tossings the sleeper had contrived to betray the fact that his hirsute appearance was due not to nature but to art. A wire hook had been displaced from the ear, leaving one side of the wig tilted so as to disclose underneath the smooth cheek of a clean-shaven man.