"I thought," I said, "that I saw your Excellency in a street near Shaftesbury Avenue, leaving a small foreign restaurant,—the Café Universel. Your Excellency was with a man named Delora."
Very slowly the ambassador shook his head.
"Not me!" he said. "Not me! I did dine with the younger members of the Legation in Langham Place. What name did you say?"
"A man named Delora," I repeated.
Once more the ambassador shook his head, slowly and thoughtfully.
"Delora!" he repeated. "The name is unknown to me. There are many others of my race in London now," he continued. "The costume, perhaps, makes one seem like another to those who look and pass by."
I bowed very low. It was the most magnificently told lie to which I had ever listened in my life! His Excellency smiled at me graciously as I made my adieux, and passed on. Despite my disappointment, I felt that I was now becoming profoundly interested in my quest. The evidence, too, was all in favor of Delora. It seemed, indeed, as though this undertaking in which he was involved might, after all, be connected with other things than crime!