CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I
Ten days later. A large sitting room in exclusive lodgings near Picadilly, London. Two men in an animated conversation. The decidedly younger one, breezy and Times Squarish, and yet politely deferential to the experience of his senior; the latter, a tall, wiry man immaculately dressed in a suit of neutral coloring.
The young man was saying:
"Yes, Mr. Pryor, he's slowly warming to me. Slowly. I tell you, sir, a Japanese naval attache can give points to an icicle. Still, I think he's biting!"
"Did you tell him that the U.S. Army of Occupation had sent machine guns to the number of three thousand two hundred and fifty to the Ukraine?"
"No. I followed your instructions to the dot. I merely said I was in a position to tell him the number."
"Well?"
"He replied, with a sour smile, that he was in the same position as regards me. I ventured to question the correctness of his information. He volunteered the figure."
"And the figure he gave?"