"Surely, you have been very quick in coming down from the frontier. Did
you come by train?"

"Oh, no!" he answered. "I found that the car in which you drove to the
station ... it belonged to the gentleman who came to meet you, you
know ... was being sent back to Berlin by road, so I got the driver to
give me a lift."

He said this quite airily, with his usual tone of candour. But for a
moment I regretted my decision to go to the Esplanade with him. What if
he knew more than he seemed to know?

I dismissed the suspicion from my mind.

"Bah!" I said to myself, "you are getting jumpy. Besides, it is too late
to turn back now!"

We had a friendly wrangle as to who should pay for the drinks, and it
ended in my paying. Then, after a long wait, we managed to get a cab, an
antique-looking "growler" driven by an octogenarian in a coat of many
capes, and drove to the Esplanade.

It was a regular palace of a place, with a splendid vestibule with walls
and pavement of different-hued marbles, with palm trees over-shadowing
a little fountain tinkling in a jade basin, with servants in gaudy
liveries. The reception clerk overwhelmed me with the cordiality of his
welcome to my companion and "the American gentleman," and after a
certain amount of coquettish protestations about the difficulty of
providing accommodation, allotted us a double suite on the entresol,