“Of course I will.”
“For one thing I want your people here to get me a personal audience with the Czar.”
“The Czar! Well, that’s a pretty tall proposition as a start. But I daresay it can be done. We’re on excellent terms with Prince Kalkov who arranges such things.”
I laughed.
“But old Kalkov’s just the man who must know nothing about it. He’s the man I’m fighting; so I’ll drop that part of the business.”
“Fighting? How’s that? Give me some facts.”
“I think I’ll begin backwards,” and I told him about Siegel’s arrest; and then little by little most of the story.
“Don’t tell me anything about the contents of those papers,” he said. “It might be very inconvenient knowledge.”
“I can’t; I don’t know them myself; but it’s in regard to them I want your assistance. Of course I don’t mean to compromise you in any way officially.”
“I’m afraid you’re trying to weave cloth of spider’s webs with a hornet’s sting for the shuttle, Denver. My advice to you in regard to those papers is—burn ’em.”