Impossible! Somehow something must have leaked out to rouse the suspicions of this astute plotter, and make her guess that I was not what I seemed.
It was with the sensations of a man struggling in the meshes of an invisible net that I saw M. Petrovitch enter the room.
The celebrated wire-puller, whose name was familiar to every statesman and stock-broker in Europe, had an appearance very unlike his reputation.
He was the court dandy personified. Every detail of his dress was elaborated to the point of effeminacy. His hands were like a girl’s, his long hair was curled and scented, he walked with a limp and spoke with a lisp, removing a gold-tipped cigarette from his well-displayed teeth.
As the smoke of the cigarette drifted toward me, I was conscious of an acute, but imperfect, twinge of memory. The sense of smell, though the most neglected, is the most reliable sense with which we are furnished. I could not be mistaken in thinking I had smelt tobacco like that before.
“I have come to see you without losing a moment, Mr. Sterling,” he said in very good English. “My good friend Madame Y—— sent me a note from the Palace to beg me to show you every attention. It is too bad that an ambassador of peace—a friend of that great and good man, Place, should be staying in a hotel, while hundreds of Russians would be delighted to welcome him as their guest. My house is a poor one, it is true, and I am hardly of high enough rank, still——”
The intriguer was asking me to transfer myself to his roof, to become his prisoner, in effect.
“I cannot thank you enough,” I responded, “but I am not going to stay. The Princess has convinced me that the war-cloud will blow over, and I think of going on to Constantinople to intercede with the Sultan on behalf of the Armenians.”
“A noble idea,” M. Petrovitch responded warmly. “What would the world do without such men as you? But at all events you will dine with me before you go?”