My answers seemed to convince my questioner.... Handing me a note he said: 'No one besides ourselves is to know that you are to undertake the mission outlined in that note.' Then he sat forward abruptly, his elbows resting on the desk, his head between his hands, his eyes fixed on space.... I began to study the note.... I was dumfounded!... I had thought all along that this man was the mortal enemy of the persons this note commanded me to rescue from danger.... I could not understand HOW there could be the slightest co-operation between this man and the other great ones of the earth that note commanded me to call upon for assistance in case I should need it. It was utterly incomprehensible! Yet THERE were the directions in plain black and white.... And I could not ask a solitary question!... In the same shrill voice the man asked: 'Have you memorized it?' I had! It was burned into my very soul. I could not forget a syllable of it!... Without another word he took the note, struck a match and watched it curl into shapeless ashes.... Then making a quick gesture he plunged into the documents before him.... I backed away until the door closed and shut out the sight of the lonely figure enveloped in a green light, his face illuminated against the shadowy background of an underground chamber of the Foreign Office.... On the way to Friedrichstrasse depot I met that girl of the Métropole again!" IV WHEN ROYALTY GETS DOUBLE-CROSSED 6. The next entry was: "On the Orient Express, or what was the O.E. before the '_Grosse General Stab_' took over the whole job of mixing up these schedules.... Well, well, well, the veiled lady of the Métropole and Buckingham is in trouble in the next compartment ... at least so she says!... She just came into my compartment and said she had been insulted by the man who is sharing it with her.... Confound him!... BUT ... Now I've heard of such 'plants' before.... While I'd like to go in there and kick the brute through the partitions I believe discretion is the better part of valor.... Let her call the guard if the case needs attention.... The guard is a reservist and I believe she _knows_ it.... Furthermore, I must be at Donaustrasse 24, Budapest, tomorrow, and meet Colonel Shuvalov at the Hotel de Paris, Belgrade, the day after.... I wonder if that petit Paris looks the same as when I met my old friend Count Arthur Zu Weringrode and Kazimir Galitzyn coquetting with Cecilia Coursan, Mlle. Balniaux and the Petite Valon at the card tables after our sparkling dinners a few years ago.... And where is that fire-eating Prince now?... He was a great friend of Grey and Churchill at Monte Carlo.... and notwithstanding that meeting in the Taunus they MUST BE friends YET.... The Monte Carlo combination HOLDS good today.... The Taunus meeting so far as Haldane and Winston Spencer were concerned was a _frame-up_ to catch Waechter and 'His Whiskers' (both the Admiral and the General)....