This, I believe, was Herr Blaumberg, and in my note to my superiors I could not refrain from urging the unwisdom of entrusting delicate and important work to any but those tried and trusted officials, who were acquainted with every move of the game and able not only to circumvent, but to anticipate the action of the official police. Of course, the people in Berlin very emphatically restated their old parrot cry that there was a formidable secret service in existence and they sent me a cock-and-bull story (as the British say), that Herr Blaumberg had been shadowed from the moment he left America to the moment he arrived in the Mersey; that all his documents had been scientifically burgled and the fullest particulars of his mission had been transmitted by wireless long before he had reached England. Thus do incompetent bureaucrats excuse their own lack of foresight! I was in London when the news came, firmly established in my rôle of Chilian importer, and so well did I play my part, that I had secured certain little Government orders and was even assisted by Government officials, all unknowing, you may be sure, to the pursuit of my investigations. It was on the very day that I read this doleful news of Herr Blaumberg’s sad end, that I made the acquaintance of Mister Haynes. I saw him standing on the corner of Bouverie and Fleet Streets--a tall, young, unshaven man, wearing pince-nez, and a very shabby suit. With one quick, comprehensive glance I sized him up. The bundle of various coloured pencils and the fountain-pen in his left-hand waistcoat pocket, the absence of watch and chain, the hat carelessly balanced on the back of his head, the hands thrust into his trousers pockets, the drooping cigarette and the listless eyes, which watched the traffic passing up and down, told me as plainly as though his biography had been handed to me, all the history I wished to know. His linen was not clean, his collar was two or three days old, his boots were down at heel. With that decision which has always marked my actions I walked up to him with a smile. “I think I have met you before, have I not?” I said. He turned his head and looked at me from the crown of my hat to the soles of my boots. “I daresay,” he said. “Come and have a drink,” said I briskly, and he obeyed with alacrity. We turned into the private bar of a public house, ordered our drinks and withdrew to a little round table and a couple of chairs in a corner of the saloon bar. “I don’t remember your name,” said I, “but I know you are a newspaper man and if I remember rightly you have not had a great deal of luck lately?” “You have a good memory,” he said, “and if mine was as good I could tell you your name, your age, the place of your birth and the state of your banking account, but, unfortunately, my memory is a little groggy.” He lifted his drink with a shaking hand. I saw the whole story.