“Did? What, have they gone under?”
“No. Only Hengelmann has been in his coffin fully two years, and the Baron died at Nice last winter.”
“What?” cried Max, starting forward.
“I repeat what I say, Mr Barclay. Your friend Adam has been indulging in a pretty fiction.”
“Are you sure? Are you quite sure they are dead?”
“Most certainly. I was staying in the same hotel at Nice when the Baron died, and I followed him to the grave. He was a great friend of mine.”
Max Barclay sat stunned. Until that moment he had believed in Jean Adam and his plausible tales, but he now saw how very cleverly he had been deceived and imposed upon.
“You’re surprised,” he laughed. “But you must remember that you can get a decent suit of gentlemanly clothes for five pounds, and visiting-cards are only two shillings a hundred. People so often overlook those two important facts in life. Thousands of men can put off their identity with their clothes.”
“But Adam—do you happen to know him?” Max asked. “If you do, it will surely be a very friendly act to tell me the truth.”
“Well,” replied the elder man with some hesitancy, “I may as well tell you at once that the Sultan has never given any concession for the railway from Nisch to San Giovanni di Medua to cross Turkish territory—and will never give it. He fears Bulgaria and Servia too much, for he never knows what Power may be behind them. And, after all, who can blame him? Why should he open his gates to an enemy? Albania is always in unrest, for in the north the Christians predominate, and there is bound to be trouble ere long.”