Give my own name I could not just yet, so I sent up one of Siegel’s cards, marking it on urgent private business. After some little farther trouble this had the requisite effect, and I was shown into the presence of a man some fifty years of age, thin and tall, with a military carriage, clean shaven, with one of those straight almost lipless mouths you see in men of secretive mind.
“Mr. Siegel?” he asked in English.
“Are we quite alone?”
His eyes asked me what I meant.
“You can see, sir,” was what his lips said.
“Will you answer my question, please?” I persisted. I had my reasons; for there was a big screen in the room and I had heard things.
“You can rely upon everything being confidential.”
I pointed to the screen and looked at him. He started.
“A screen always suggests draughts to me. Permit me to——”
“There is no need,” he interposed quickly, as I was moving toward it. “It is usual to have a memorandum of matters that pass here.”