“Is this the letter?” I nodded as he held it up. “With your permission I’ll read it again.” “I don’t care what you do with it,” I said. “It is certainly very strange,” he muttered to himself when he finished. “He clearly has had a letter from you and this is the reply to it.” “Nothing of the sort is clear, sir, and I’ll beg you to be so good as not to imply that I should lie about it either to you or to him,” I rapped out hotly. “I have had as much from your people as I can stand for one night. I tell you point-blank that I did not write any letter either to M. Volheno or any one else giving any such information as he and you appear to think; nor did I tell any one anything of the sort. I declare that on my word of honour.” His look was very stern. “This is an official matter, of course, Mr. Donnington, and you must not regard anything I say as reflecting in any way upon your word. But I am taken entirely by surprise, of course, and equally of course the matter cannot rest here.” “What does that mean?” He made a little gesture of protest and sat thinking. “Do you say that you had no such information about the house in the Rua Catania?” he asked after the pause. “What I know and what I don’t know concerns no one but myself, sir,” I replied firmly. “I decline to answer your question.” He shrugged his shoulders significantly. “This may be more serious than I thought. You will see that. I think, perhaps, I had better send for M. Volheno.” “You can send for the Dictator himself if you like. It makes no sort of difference to me.” He was much perplexed what to do and at length took a paper from one of the pigeon holes of the table, folded it very carefully and then held it out to me. “Is that your signature, Mr. Donnington?” He put the question in his severest magisterial manner. “It’s uncommonly like it, I admit.” “Ah,” he grunted with evident satisfaction. “Have you any objection to write a few lines in my presence and at my dictation.” “None whatever, provided you undertake to destroy what I write in my presence afterwards.” He smiled grimly and then rose and waved me to sit at the desk. “Well?” I asked, looking up pen in hand at the desk. “Write as follows, please.” “It may influence your Government in granting the Beira concessions which I seek,” I wrote as he dictated, “if I give you some information which I have learnt. Let your men raid at once the house 237, Rua da Catania. It is one of the headquarters of the revolutionary party. I shall be in a position to tell you much more in a few days. Of course you will keep the fact of my writing thus absolutely secret.” “That will do,” he said. I resumed my former seat and he sat down at the desk again and very carefully compared what I had written with the letter the signature of which he had shown to me. The work of comparison occupied a long time, and now and again he made a note of some point which struck him.