CHAPTER XXXI
MISHKA TURNS UP
“
You must have found Cornish history very fascinating, Maurice,” Mary declared at breakfast-time next morning. “Jim says it was nearly twelve when you got back. You bad boy to keep such late hours, after you’ve been so ill, too!”
“I’m all right again now,” I protested. “And the vicar certainly is a very interesting companion.”
There were a couple of letters, one from the Courier office, and another from Harding, Lord Southbourne’s private secretary, and both important in their way.
Harding wrote that Southbourne would be in town at the end of the week, en route for Scotland, and wished to see me if I were fit for service. “A soft job this time, a trip to the States, so you’ll be able to combine business with pleasure.”
Under any other circumstances I could have done with a run home; but even while I read the letter I decided that Southbourne would have to entrust the matter—whatever it might be—to some one else.
I opened the second letter, a typed note, signed by Fenning the news editor, enclosing one of the printed slips on which chance callers have to write their name and business. I glanced at that first, and found it filled in with an almost indecipherable scrawl. I made out the name and address right enough as “M. Pavloff, Charing Cross Hotel,” and puzzled over a line in German, which I at length translated as “bearing a message from Johann.” Now who on earth were Pavloff and Johann?
“Dear Wynn,” the note ran: