Five forty-five the next afternoon and I was installed at the Hotel Metropole in Monte Carlo. After a refreshing bath, I had supper served in my room, and sent for the hotel courier--this an old globe-trotter trick. Hotel couriers or dragomen are walking encylopædias. They are good linguists, observant and shrewd. They are masters of the art of finding out things they should not know, and past grand masters in keeping their mouths shut unless you know how to open them. Not with palm oil. Oh, no, nothing so crude! You would never get any truths or anything worth while, with bribery.
I had to find out local intrigues and gossips, who was in Monte Carlo and what was doing, who were the leading demi-mondaines and gamblers? Were there any possible Secret Service men? Hence the courier, a Swiss from Ober Arau, a district of Switzerland, I luckily knew well. When he knocked at the door, I cheerily bade him come in. I made my manner as good natured as possible. I offered him a real Medijeh cigarette. As befitting his station, he was slipping the cigarette in his pocket.
"Oh, no!" I said. "Light it, won't you? Have a little smoke with me here. I'm a bit lonesome. I want to get my bearings. Won't you join me in a glass of wine?"
That was my first oar in. After some commonplace conversation, as to how the season was, I asked:
"Anybody of interest here?"
I winked knowingly. Possibly it pleased the courier to have someone to chuckle over a secret. All my oars were in.
"At the Grand Hotel de Londres," he said slyly, "there is a gentleman who does not fool me."
I offered him another cigarette, helped him to another glass of wine.
"He is registered there as Count Techlow, but he can't fool me. He is the Prince Galitzin."
"What's he doing; gambling a lot?" (I knew he wasn't.)