The Meeting of the Seven Dials
It would be as well to pass over the sufferings of the next four hours as quickly as possible. Bundle found her position extremely cramped. She had judged that the meeting, if meeting there was to be, would take place at a time when the club was in full swing—somewhere probably between the hours of midnight and two a.m.
She was just deciding that it must be at least six o’clock in the morning when a welcome sound came to her ears, the sound of the unlocking of a door.
In another minute the electric light was switched on. The hum of voices, which had come to her for a minute or two, rather like the far-off roar of sea waves, ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and Bundle heard the sound of a bolt being shot. Clearly someone had come in from the gaming room next door, and she paid tribute to the thoroughness with which the communicating door had been rendered soundproof.
In another minute the intruder came into her line of vision—a line of vision that was necessarily somewhat incomplete but which yet answered its purpose. A tall man, broad-shouldered and powerful looking, with a long black beard. Bundle remembered having seen him sitting at one of the baccarat tables on the preceding night.
This, then, was Alfred’s mysterious Russian gentleman, the proprietor of the club, the sinister Mr. Mosgorovsky. Bundle’s heart beat faster with excitement. So little did she resemble her father that at this minute she fairly gloried in the extreme discomfort of her position.