By this I guessed that his Highness had returned to London, so I called at Dover Street, and twenty minutes later found myself seated in the big saddle-bag chair with a “Petroff” between my lips.
He was in his old brown velvet lounge coat and slippers, and had been at his writing-table when I entered. But on my appearance he threw down his pen, stretched himself, and sat round for a gossip.
Suddenly, while speaking, he made a quick, half-foreign gesture of ignorance in response to a question of mine, and in that brief instant I saw upon his right palm a curious red mark.
“Hullo!” I asked. “What’s that?”
“Oh—nothing,” he replied, rather confused I thought, and shut his hand so that I could not see it.
“But it is!” I declared. “Let me see.”
“How inquisitive you are, Diprose, old chap,” he protested.
So persistent was I, and so aroused my curiosity by finding a mark exactly like the imprint of a cat’s-paw, that, not without considerable reluctance, he explained its meaning. The story he narrated was, indeed, a most remarkable and dramatic one. And yet he related it as though it were nothing. Perhaps, indeed, the puzzling incidents were of but little moment to one who led a life so chock-full of adventure as he.
Yes, it really was curious, he remarked at last. It was in March. I had been in London’s mud and rain for a fortnight, and grown tired of it. Suddenly a confidential mission had been placed in my hands—a mission which had for its object British support to the Bulgarian Government against the machinations of Austria to extend her sphere of influence southward across the Danube and Servia.