His little eyes bored into mine like gimlets.
I began to understand.
"And if I had?"
"Then all old Kore can say is that the gentleman has come to the right shop, as his gracious brother did. How can we serve the gentleman now? What are his requirements? It is a difficult, a dangerous business. It costs money, much money, but it can be arranged ... it can be arranged."
"But if you do for me what you did for my brother," I said, "I don't see how that helps to explain this word, this clue to his address!"
"My dear sir, I am as much in the dark as you are yourself about the significance of this word. But I can tell you this, your brother, thanks to my intervention, found himself placed in a situation in which he might well have come across this word...."
"Well?" I said impatiently.
"Well, if we obliged the gentleman as we obliged his brother, the gentleman might be taken where his brother was taken, the gentleman is young and smart, he might perhaps find a clue ..."
"Stop talking riddles, for Heaven's sake!" I cried in exasperation, "and answer my questions plainly. First, what did you do for my brother?"
"Your brother had deserted from the front—that is the most difficult class of business we have to deal with—we procured him a permis de séjour for fifteen days and a post in a safe place where no enquiries would be made after him."