The House in Lordship Lane by A.E.W. Mason

FAITHFUL to her instructions from a more experienced traveller, Rosalind continued in the Blue Train from the Gare de Lyon to the Gare du Nord. At the Gare du Nord she descended and followed a porter, who carried her two travelling cases up the steps to the small hotel in the station building. A letter was handed to her by the manageress in which Hanaud begged her to make no fixed arrangements, assured her that his debt to his English friends would not be diminished by the utmost help which he could give to her, and that by the time she had made herself comfortable and taken her little breakfast, a messenger would come for her. By his signature, he was still a member of the Peerage. Rosalind enjoyed an admirable hot bath, a change into a well-tended black suit, a white silk shirt with a frill of lace, a pair of beige silk stockings and shoes as admirable as her bath, and took an equally admirable little breakfast in the restaurant. When she had finished her cigarette a messenger bowed before her. Monsieur Hanaud was at her disposal. She followed him to a car in the courtyard and was whisked away through the traffic by a driver, who used his gong rather as a musical instrument playing a coloratura solo than as a motorist's signal, across the bridge to the Sureté. In an office looking out upon the quay and the river, Monsieur Hanaud received her.

"You will see in England that dear Mr. Ricardo," he said as he held open an agate cigarette-box. "Will you, please, at some time suitable, indicate to him I do not offer to my friends those deplorable cigarettes in a blue-paper cover which hurt him so much when he smells me smoking them. A match? So! You have a letter for me I think? Thank you! Will you sit here whilst I read it?"