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‘filou’?”
    â€œA pickpocket, I think. Does it give the artist’s name?”
    â€œYes…Jacques Dufil.”
    â€œJacques Dufil!” echoed Dilys in amazement. “But it must be a mistake. It’s so exactly like Paul’s work. It’s quite uncanny. They must have got the names mixed in the catalogue or something.”
    â€œI shouldn’t let it worry you.”
    â€œI won’t!” declared Dilys, glancing at her watch. “I’ve only got one worry on my mind at the moment. If I don’t leave at once I’m going to be dreadfully late for lunch.”
    â€œCan I…er…see you home?”
    Dilys hesitated.
    â€œNo—I think it would be more discreet if you didn’t. So if you don’t mind I think we’d better say ‘Good-bye’ here.” Adding with a friendly smile: “Until tomorrow, I hope.”
    â€œSure thing…until tomorrow.” He thrust out a strong, sizeable hand and gripped hers so enthusiastically that she winced. “Slice of luck that I ducked in here to have a squint at these painter johnnies, Miss…By the way, what is your name?”
    â€œDilys Westmacott. And yours?”
    The young man gulped.
    â€œMine? Oh, I’m…I’m plain John Smith. Pretty duff, I admit, but it’s the best I can do for you.”
    Dilys threw him a suspicious glance.
    â€œIt sounds horribly like an alias. You’re not pulling my leg, are you?”
    â€œHeaven forbid!”
    â€œWell…good-bye.”
    â€œGood-bye, Miss Westmacott.”
    As he watched her pass through the swing-doors into the brilliant sunshine, the young man experienced a pang of remorse. He hated having to deceive a charming girl like that, but what else could he do in the circumstances? What had Meredith been drumming into his head ever since they’d arrived in this playboys’ paradise?
    â€œNo matter where you go or what you do, remember, m’lad, you’re always on duty.”
    Exactly! And Acting-Sergeant Freddy Strang wasn’t the sort of fellow to slip up on his instructions. No matter what happened he had to preserve his incognito!

Chapter IV
    Second Encounter
    I
    That morning Inspector Meredith had driven over to police-headquarters at Nice for a pow-wow with his opposite number, Inspector Blampignon. They’d already met a couple of times since Meredith and Strang had settled in about a week earlier at their unpretentious hotel in Menton. Despite differences of language and temperament, the two men were already firm friends. Luckily Blampignon had a fair command of English and Meredith a smattering of schoolboy French. In consequence, after a certain initial embarrassment, they were soon able to chatter away pretty fluently.
    Inspector Blampignon took life as it came, and accepted what did turn up with tremendous gusto. With his dark, humorous eyes, rotund figure, and easy rumbling laugh, he was a true Provençal. But behind that tolerant, comfortable personality was a quick intelligence and an astute practical mind. When the need arose Blampignon’s plump and rather loose-limbed body could jerk, with surprising agility, into swift and decisive action.
    As Meredith greeted him that morning in the cool, half-shuttered office on the second storey of the massive building, he sensed at once that Blampignon was worried. In a few moments the cause of this worry bobbed to the surface of their conversation. During the last few days information had come in about the resurgence of a well-tried racket that Blampignon and his colleagues had thought to be conclusively scotched. For a time it had proved to be one of the most profitable rackets along the Riviera. The details, as the Inspector pointed out, were simple. American cigarettes, which could be bought in Algiers and other North African ports for as little as sixpence a packet, were smuggled in fast motor-launches across the Mediterranean to