action was very amateurish and very poor detective work; but
regardless of discovery I crossed the road and passed close by
the pair.

I am certain that Dexter was speaking as I came up, but, well out
of earshot, his voice was suddenly arrested. His companion turned
and looked at me.

I was prepared for it, yet was thrilled electrically by the
flashing glance of the violet eyes--for it was she--the beautiful
harbinger of calamities!

My brain was in a whirl; complication piled itself upon complication;
yet in the heart of all this bewilderment I thought I could detect
the key of the labyrinth, but at the time my ideas were in disorder,
for the violet eyes were not lowered but fixed upon me in cold scorn.

I knew myself helpless, and bending my head with conscious
embarrassment I passed on hurriedly.

I had work to do in plenty, but I could not apply my mind to it;
and now, although the obvious and sensible thing was to go about
my business, I wandered on aimlessly, my brain employed with a
hundred idle conjectures and the query, "Where have I seen The
Stetson Man?" seeming to beat, like a tattoo, in my brain. There
was something magnetic about the accursed slipper, for without
knowing by what route I had arrived there, I found myself in Great
Orchard Street and close under the walls of the British Antiquarian
Museum. Then I was effectually aroused from my reverie.