"Will you allow them to outrage your kitchen—an Embassy kitchen too—without your consent?" I said.
"What have you done?" he asked in French.
"Only what your patron will approve," I replied in the same tongue. "Messieurs les assassins have a grudge against me."
He still hesitated, while the young footman advanced on me. He was fingering something in his trousers pocket which I did not like.
Now was the time when, as they say in America, I should have got busy with my gun; but alas! I had no gun. I feared supports for the enemy, for the footman at the first sight of me had run back the way he had come, and I had heard a low whistle.
What might have happened I do not know, had not the god appeared from the machine in the person of Hewins, the butler.
"Hewins," I said, "you know me. I have often dined here, and you know that I am a friend of Monsieur Felix. I am on my way to see him on an urgent matter, and for various reasons I had to enter by Monsieur Alphonse's kitchen. Will you take me at once to Monsieur Felix?"
Hewins bowed, and on his imperturbable face there appeared no sign of surprise. "This way, sir," was all he said.
As I followed him I saw the footman plucking nervously at the something in his trousers-pocket. Lumley's agents apparently had not always the courage to follow his instructions to the letter, for I made no doubt that the order had been to take me alive or dead.
I found Felix alone, and flung myself into an arm-chair. "My dear chap," I said, "take my advice and advise His Excellency to sack the red-haired footman."