Suddenly his whole face brightened up with eager expectancy. He had just perceived the sound of a harsh voice coming from the next room, and demanding peremptorily to speak with M. de Kervoisin.
A servant entered, but de Kervoisin was too impatient to allow him to speak.
"Number Ten is it?" he queried sharply, and at once added, "Show him in."
A tall, ragged, uncouth, unshaved creature sauntered into the room, with hands in pockets and a chawed cigar stump in the corner of his mouth. Strangely enough the elegant high-bred M. de Kervoisin received this extraordinary visitor with the utmost courtesy. He rose to greet him, shook him warmly by the hand, offered him a chair, coffee, liqueurs, cigarettes. The newcomer declined everything except the armchair, into which he threw himself with obvious satisfaction.
"Tired, my friend?" M. de Kervoisin queried amiably.
"Of course," the other replied curtly. "I have been up nearly two hours."
"The want of sleep," M. de Kervoisin murmured with an engaging smile. Then he added drily: "And I suppose some emotion . . ."
"Emotion?" the other broke in with a harsh laugh. "None, I assure you, save what is pleasurable."
He who went by the strange appellation of Number Ten threw aside the chawed stump of his cigar, then he carefully selected a cigarette from M. de Kervoisin's case, and lit it leisurely before he replied:
"Yes, my friend . . . to see a woman shot. Have you never seen a human creature shot or hung?"
"No, never!" M. de Kervoisin replied with a shudder. "And I hope I never may."
"It is a thrill well worth experiencing," the other remarked and blew rings of cigarette smoke through his pursed lips. "Yes," he went on drily, "well worth experiencing."
"Ah!" M. de Kervoisin rejoined with a sigh, "you English are astonishing."
"Yes, I dare say we seem so to you," Number Ten retorted. "But we do not shoot women."
"So I understand. The danger of spies is not quite so acute with you as it is with us; and this woman was really dangerous."
"She was dangerous because she was so extraordinarily clever. In all my experience I never came across anything quite so ingenious as the way she went to work."
"She worked from the British aerodrome, I think you told me, behind Guillaumet?"