Luckily, the streets about that hour were practically free from traffic, and my Panhard went pounding along at a pace which, if it were horribly illegal, was certainly mightily pleasant and exhilarating so that by the time I was tearing through Westminster all my doubts as to the strangeness of my reception by this queer-looking monk had vanished and I was quite keen to put this new mission through with rapidity and success. Now, as most people are aware, the House of Commons is about the most easy place in the world of access if any man or woman has the most flimsy pretext of business with any one of its six hundred or so solemn and dignified members. I sprang from my car, handed it over to the care of a loafer who quickly hurried up, and simply nodded to the constables in the entrance. Then I marched up that long passage, peopled with the statues of dead and gone Parliamentarians, with head erect and heart that beat high with anticipation at some good and sensational development. As arranged, I stopped in the big hall, where some forty or fifty persons were waiting either for admission to the strangers' gallery or intent on interviews; and, slipping on to one of the leather-covered lounges in a corner, I drew the precious missive from my pocket and broke the heavy seals with which it had been fastened. As I expected, the package did not all at once yield up its secret. The outer wrapper, of a stout linen cloth similar to those used by the post-office for registered envelopes, merely fell off and revealed two other envelopes, also carefully stamped with red wax. On the top one was written in printed characters, as though the writer were afraid that his handwriting might be recognised: "To John Cooper-Nassington, Esq, MP, St Stephen's, Westminster, SW." "The Bearer waits." On the other, to my astonishment, I discovered no less an address than this: _Urgent_. _Private_. "To the Most Hon. Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs." "Only to be delivered by Mr Hugh Glynn in case Mr Cooper-Nassington should decline." For a second, I confess, I felt too astonished to say, or to do, or even to think of anything at all. I sat, with these big legal-looking letters in front of me, gazing into space, trying vainly to interpret the meaning of all these extraordinary manoeuvres on the part of a youthful Spaniard who might, it was true, be really a most important envoy of some far-off foreign state, but equally might be also, and with more apparent reason it seemed to me, absolutely nobody at all.