"Certainly; she is the landlady. Her assistant is that same deaf and dumb maid-of-all-work who worked with her at the old house, and is sharing with her a sort of 'retirement' here. 'Captain Burbage' set the pair of them up in business here two days after his departure from Clarges Street and pays them a monthly wage sufficient to make up for any lack of 'custom.' All that they are bound to do is to allow a pensioner of the captain's--a poor old half-witted ex-waiter called Joseph--to come and go as he will and to gratify a whim for waiting upon people if he chooses to do so. What's that? No, the 'captain' does not live here. He and his henchman, Dollops, are supposed to be out of the country. Mrs. Condiment does not know _where_ he lives--nor will she ever be permitted to do so. You may, some day, perhaps----that is for the future to decide; but not at present, my dear friend; it is too risky." "Why risky, old chap? Surely I can come and go in disguise as I did in the old days, Cleek? We managed secret visits all right then, remember." "Yes--I know. But things have changed, Mr. Narkom. You may disguise yourself as cleverly as you please, but you can't disguise the red limousine. It is known and it will be followed; so, until you can get another of a totally different colour and appearance I'll ring you up each morning at the Yard and we can make our appointments over your private wire. For the present we must take no great risks. In the days that lie behind, dear friend, I had no 'tracker' to guard against but Margot, no enemies but her paltry crew to reckon with and to outwit. In these, I have many. They have brains, these new foes; they are rich, they are desperate, they are powerful; and behind them is the implacable hate and the malignant hand of----No matter! You wouldn't understand." "I can make a devilish good guess, then," rapped in Narkom, a trifle testily, his vanity a little hurt by that final suggestion, and his mind harking back to the brief enlightening conversation between Margot and Count Waldemar that night on the spray-swept deck of the Channel packet. "Behind them is 'the implacable hate and the malignant hand' of the King of Mauravania!" "What utter rubbish!" Cleek's jeering laughter fairly stung, it was so full of pitying derision. "My friend, have you taken to reading penny novelettes of late? A thief-taker and a monarch! An ex-criminal and a king! I should have given you credit for more common sense." "It was the King of Mauravania's equerry who directed that attempt to kill you by blowing up the house in Clarges Street." "Very possibly. But that does not incriminate his royal master. Count Waldemar is not only equerry to King Ulric of Mauravania, but is also nephew to its ex-Prime Minister--the gentleman who is doing fifteen years' energetic labour for the British Government as a result of that attempt to trap me with his witless 'Silver Snare.'"