“They—have him?”—jerkily.
“I fear so!”
The Siresian swore, stormily.
“Ah, well,” he concluded. “He was well paid for the risk—poor devil!”
And now we were in the heart of hotel-land. The car drew up before the dazzling portals of the New Louvre. The footman threw open the door and stood rigidly to attention. On the car-step the Grand Duke hesitated, turned, and was delivered of a new idea.
“Now that I have the letters and the photographs, what have I to fear?” he snapped, in an angry voice. “They cannot reach them here! And do they not think that I have delivered them to the embassy?”
O’Hagan placed a gloved finger to his lips, and directed a rapid glance through his monocle toward a hotel servant who stood immediately behind the footman.
“It is good of you to bring us along to supper, Duke!” he cried loudly and breezily. “Fancy running into you at the Folly of all places!”
The Grand Duke accepted the guidance of this accomplished diplomat. In single file we entered the hotel—the nobleman frowning thunderously at the liveried servant silently impeached of espionage by O’Hagan. To a suite of apartments furnished with opulent magnificence we made a stately progress. When, for a few moments, my surprising friend and I found ourselves alone, the mental volcano which raged within me burst into active eruption, casting forth questions in a burning torrent.
O’Hagan, hand raised: “My dear Raymond!”