“A little ground!” he echoed. “Well, I’ve been two trips to Petersburg this month, twice here to Paris, and once to Vienna. I’ve only slept one night in London since the 1st.”
“You’re a bit sick of it, I should think,” I observed, looking at the round face lit up by its pair of merry grey eyes. He was an easy-going fellow; his good-humour never seemed ruffled.
“Oh, it agrees with me,” he laughed lightly. “I don’t care as long as I get the monthly run to Teheran now and then. That’s a bit of a change, you know, after these everlasting railways, with their stuffy sleeping-cars and abominable arrangements for giving a man indigestion.”
I examined the box to see that the seals affixed in Downing Street were intact, then signed the receipt and handed it back to him.
Of the corps of Queen’s messengers—nicknamed “the greyhounds” because of the badge which each wears suspended round his neck and concealed beneath his cravat, a silver greyhound surmounted by the Royal arms—Captain Jack Anderson was the most popular. A welcome guest at every embassy or legation, he was on friendly terms with the whole staff, from the Ambassador himself down to the hall-porter, and he carried the gossip of the embassies to and fro across Europe. From him we all gathered news of our old colleagues in other capitals—of their joys and their sorrows, their difficulties and their junketings. His baggage being by international courtesy free from Customs’ examination, he oft-times carried with him a new frock for an ambassador’s wife or daughter—a service which always put him high in the good graces of the feminine portion of the diplomatic circle.
“Kaye seems bobbing about pretty much,” he observed, handing me his cigarette-case. Anderson’s cigarettes were well known for their excellence, for he purchased them at a shop in Petersburg, and often distributed a box in one or other of the embassies. “I met him a week ago on board the Calais boat, and two days later I came across him in the buffet down at Bâle. He was, however, as close as an oyster.”
“Of course. It isn’t likely that he’d talk very much,” I remarked. “His profession is to know everything, and at the same time to affect ignorance. He went to Berlin last night.”
“We had breakfast together in the early morning at Bâle, and he questioned me closely about a friend of yours.”
“Who?”