The hole was two days old; and had not happened to the hat in its passage across the _south_ frontier of Switzerland—but considerably further north, on one of those dark and rainy nights when sentries fire first and challenge afterwards. Our priest limped out of the station, thanking God for the fog, through the dank gardens (from instinct he avoided main streets near railway stations), past the Hotel Cavour, and Finzi’s shuttered dress-making shop, past the dark bulk of the Scala Theatre, through the huge empty Arcade, and across the Piazza del Duomo into the Via Dante. . . . He had no more money in his pockets, having calculated to report at Berne: but instructions as to compromising Consuls or Legations in neutral countries were particularly explicit: and in the Swiss Capital a gentleman with a turned-up moustache had evinced peculiar interest about his movements. At the Franco-Swiss frontier, other moustached gentlemen might be waiting. So the last of our priest’s notes—he experienced some difficulty in getting change for the five German “marks”—had paid for the journey from Chiasso to Milan. It was ten years since his last visit to the city, but he managed to find the Via Boccaccio which runs past the Dal Verme Theatre, and followed it—rather painfully for he wanted to go to sleep on every bench—till he saw, hung at the corner of a high stone house, a shield, white lettered on a red ground, “His Britannic Majesty’s Consul General for Lombardy and Venetia.” “_Gott sei Dank_,” said the priest—and, then remembering that it was no longer necessary to _think_ in German, “Thank God!” He slinked past the porter’s lodge—the consulate is on the first floor—dragged himself up the marble stairs; and rang the bell. Mr. Towsey, brown-bearded, short of stature, determined of eye, opened the door himself. He had just made his early cup of tea; his mother was still in bed; their servant gossiping downstairs. “_Ma cosa vuole a cuest’ ora?_” he said. “_Console Inglese?_” asked the priest. “_Si. Ma cosa vuole?_” “_Lasc’ entrare. Non posso parlarvi qui._” The door closed behind them. Mr. Towsey led into a square bare room, safe in one corner, desk near the window. “_Ebbene?_” began the consul. “For the Lord’s sake give me a cigarette,” said Francis Gordon. * * * * * He had no papers to prove his identity. His eyes kept closing all the time he talked. The hand which held the cigarette shook like a jelly on a plate. He would neither say whence he had come, nor why, nor how. But he knew exactly what he wanted: he wanted Mr. Towsey—he said it over and over again—to send a telegram, a telegram in Embassy cypher addressed to the British Foreign Office for transmission to I. D. War Office. Also, he wanted to go to bed until the answer arrived.