“He’s the Baron von Edelstein, if that’s any help to you.”
“It isn’t. He’s not the man we’re buying the stuff from.”
“He is not. Nor he wasn’t mentioned from first to last till the letter I got the day.”
He turned to the safe beside him and drew out a bundle of papers held together by an elastic band.
“That’s the whole of the correspondence,” he said, “and there’s the last of it.”
He handed a letter to Lord Dunseverick, who read it through carefully.
“This baron,” he said, “whoever he is, intends to pay his respects to us before we leave Hamburg. Very civil of him.”
“It’s a civility we could do without. When I’m doing business I’d rather do it with business men, and a baron, you’ll understand, is no just——”
“I’m a baron myself,” said Lord Dunseverick.
“Ay, you are.”