The tentacles of the great criminal octopus which Rayne controlled were indeed far-spread. In this he was making a bid for fortune, without a doubt. To the majority of people, the Balkan States are, even to-day, _terra incognita_. The popular idea is that they are wild, inaccessible countries, inhabited by brigands. That is not so. True, there are brigands, even now after the war, in the Balkans, but Belgrade, the Serbian capital, is as civilized as Berlin, and the main boulevard of Sofia, whither I was bound, is at night almost a replica of the Boulevard des Italiens. I knew, however, that there were others in Sofia upon the same errand as myself, emissaries of other Governments and other financial houses. Therefore in those three long, never-ending days and nights which the journey occupied, my mind was constantly filled with the thoughts of the best and most judicious course to pursue in order to attain my object. The run East was uneventful, save for one fact--at the Staatsbahnhof, at Vienna, just before our train left for Budapest, a queer, fussy little old man in brown entered and was given the compartment next to mine. His nationality I could not determine. He spoke in a deep guttural voice with the fair-bearded conductor of the train, but by his clothes--which were rather dandified for so old a man--I did not believe him to be a native of the Fatherland. I heard him rumbling about with his bags in the next compartment, apparently settling himself, when of a sudden, my quick ear caught an imprecation which he uttered to himself in English. A few hours later, at dinner in the _wagon-restaurant_, I found him placed at the same little table opposite me, and naturally we began to chat. He spoke in French, perfect French it was, but refused to speak English, though, of course, he could had he wished. "Ah! _non_," he laughed. "I cannot. Excuse me. My pronunciation is so faulty. Your English is so ve-ry deefecult!" And so we talked in French, and I found the queer old fellow was on his way to Sofia. He seemed slightly deformed, his face was distinctly ugly, broad, clean-shaven, with a pair of black, piercing eyes that gave him a most striking appearance. His grey hair was long, his nose aquiline, his teeth protruding and yellow; and he was a grumbler of the most pronounced type. He growled at the food, at the service, at the draughts, at the light in the restaurant, at the staleness of the bread we had brought with us from Paris, and at the butter, which he declared to be only Danish margarine. His complaints were amusing. At first the _maitre d'hotel_ bustled about to do the bidding of the newcomer, but very quickly summed him up, and only grinned knowingly when called to listen to his biting sarcasm of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lit and all its works.