Hubert was still in search of Lambarini, and was wondering if he had gone in that direction.
At some distance down the corridor from the door of His Excellency’s private cabinet two sentries, their duties relaxed that night, stood at ease chatting, but as Hubert passed they drew themselves to attention, while around a corner from another corridor which ran at right angles a waiter with a silver salver in his hand hurried by.
The man’s face struck Waldron as peculiarly familiar, yet he saw it only for a second, as the man seemed in a great hurry.
It was not Pucci, for he had not seen him since he had first entered the building.
Hubert halted and looked after the receding figure, much puzzled. His clothes did not fit him, for the tails of his dress-coat were too long, and the trousers also were too big. Apparently, he seemed of middle-age, with a short moustache turning slightly grey, yet in his eyes, in that brief second when their glance had met, there was an expression that was familiar.
“Who can he be?” murmured Hubert to himself. “I know him. But for the life of me I can’t recollect where we’ve met before.”
The man who travels comes frequently across familiar waiters in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. Therefore, after reflection, he came to the conclusion that it must be a man who had served him somewhere or other in the past.
And he went forward to His Excellency’s rooms—that room wherein, on the last occasion, he had discussed the stolen plans with Cataldi and the two secretaries.
No one was nigh. The sentry still stood gossiping at the other end of the corridor. He would enter and have yet another look at that big safe which had been so mysteriously opened, though no one appeared to have entered there.
He turned the handle of the big door of polished mahogany. It yielded noiselessly, and pushing it open, he stood upon the thick, Oriental carpet in the too familiar room.