There stood Kennedy arrayed in all the glory of a sharp-pointed
moustache and a goatee. He had put on evening clothes of decidedly
Parisian cut, clothes which he had used abroad and had brought back
with him, but which I had never known him to wear since he came back.
On a chair reposed a chimney-pot hat that would have been pronounced
faultless on the "continong," but was unknown, except among
impresarios, on Broadway.
Kennedy shrugged his shoulders--he even had the shrug.
"Figure to yourself, monsieur," he said. "Ze great Kennedy, ze
detectif Americain--to put it tersely in our own vernacular, wouldn't
it be a fool thing for me to appear at the Vesper Club where I should
surely be recognized by someone if I went in my ordinary clothes and
features? _Un faux pas_, at the start? _Jamais!_"
There was nothing to do but agree, and I was glad that I had been
discreetly reticent about my companion in talking with the friend who
was to gain us entrance to the Avernus beyond the steel door.
We met my friend at the Riviera and dined sumptuously. Fortunately he
seemed decidedly impressed with my friend Monsieur Kay--I could do no
better on the spur of the moment than take Kennedy's initial, which
seemed to serve. We progressed amicably from oysters and soup down to
coffee, cigars, and liqueurs, and I succeeded in swallowing Kennedy's
tales of Monte Carlo and Ostend and Ascot without even a smile. He
must have heard them somewhere, and treasured them up for just such an
occasion, but he told them in a manner that was verisimilitude itself,
using perfect English with just the trace of an accent at the right
places.
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