“Again I learn,” observed the foreigner, with an amused drawl. He studied the reporter for an instant quizzically. “And so I am to supply the place of the panned story that blew up—is that it? Well, very well! Why not? I see no reason against it, if it will be of service to you. Very well, then. I have been summoned to Japan to attend a case of cancer—radium treatment—and I am on my way there now.” He smiled again. “I have noticed that American reporters are observant, and it may occur to you that I might have reached my destination quicker by way of Russia. As a matter of fact, however, I was in New York attending a convention when I received the summons. I cabled for the radium, and—well, young man, that pretty well completes the story.”
“Yes—thanks!” said the reporter. He wrote rapidly. “Operation on a Japanese?”
“Why, yes, of course—on a Japanese.”
“'Summoned,' you said. That listens as though it might be for one of the Emperor's family,” prodded the reporter shrewdly.
“I did not say so,” smiled the other imperturbably.
“And even if it were so——” He shrugged his shoulders significantly.
“I get you!” grinned the reporter. “Well, there's no harm in saying a 'High Personage' then, is there? That sounds good, and it would have to be some one on the top of the heap to bring a man like you all this way.”
“Let us be discreet, young man, and say—well, let us say, a member of prominent family,” suggested the other, still smiling.
“All right,” agreed the reporter. “I won't put anything over on you, I promise you. And now, doctor, tell us something more about radium, how it acts and all that, and how an operation is performed with it, and——”
The Hawk had apparently lost interest. He settled back in his chair, and picked up his previously discarded newspaper—yet occasionally his eyes strayed over the top of his newspaper, and rested meditatively on the little black handbag on the car floor beside the Frenchman's chair. The doctor from Selkirk, the reporter, and the French specialist talked on. The Limited reached the last stop before Selkirk. As the train pulled out again, the Hawk, as it were, summed up his thoughts.