They passed behind into the comfortable little sitting-room, smelling of morocco leather and roses, with its single high window, its broad writing-table, its carefully placed easy-chairs. Men had pleaded in here with all the eloquence at their command, men of every rank and walk in life, thieves, nobles, ruined men and pseudo-millionaires, always with the same cry—money; money for the great pleasure-mill which day and night drew in its own. Hunterleys sank heavily into a chair. The manager seated himself in an official attitude before his desk.
"I am sorry to have distressed you with this letter, Sir Henry," he said. "However, you must admit that things might have been worse. It is fortunately our invariable custom, when letters are addressed to one of our clients in our care, to deliver them to no one else under any circumstances. If you had been ill, for instance, I should have brought you your correspondence across to the hotel, but I should not have delivered it to your own secretary. That, as I say, is our invariable rule, and we find that it has saved many of our clients from inconvenience. In your case," the manager concluded impressively, "your communications being, in a sense, official, any such attempt as has been made would not stand the slightest chance of success. We should be even more particular than in any ordinary case to see that by no possible chance could any correspondence addressed to you, fall into other hands."
Hunterleys began to recover himself a little. He drew towards himself the heap of letters which the manager had laid by his side.
"Please make yourself quite comfortable here," the latter begged. "Read your letters and answer them, if you like, before you go out. I always call this," he added, with a smile, "the one inviolable sanctuary of Monte Carlo."
"You are very kind," Hunterleys replied. "Are you sure that I am not detaining you?"
"Not in the least. Personally, I am not at all busy. Three-quarters of our business, you see, is merely a matter of routine. I was just going to shut myself up here and read the Times. Have a cigarette? Here's an envelope opener and a waste-paper basket. Make yourself comfortable."
Hunterleys glanced through his correspondence, rapidly reading and destroying the greater portion of it. He came at last to two parchment envelopes marked "On His Majesty's Service." These he opened and read their contents slowly and with great care. When he had finished, he produced a pair of scissors from his waistcoat pocket and cut the letters into minute fragments. He drew a little sigh of relief when at last their final destruction was assured, and rose shortly afterwards to his feet.
"I shall have to go on to the telegraph office," he said, "to send these few messages. Thank you very much, Mr. Harrison, for your kindness. If you do not mind, I should like to take this forged order away with me."
The manager hesitated.
"I am not sure that I ought to part with it," he observed doubtfully.