a contemptuous laugh, as he got out of the barouche, and then, with the
greatest of care and gentleness, assisted his companion to alight.

They crossed the pavement and rang a bell. Almost instantly the door was
opened by a stout, yellow-haired, blear-eyed old man, who wore a huge
overcoat adorned with masses of shabby fur, and who carried a small lamp
in his hand, for the afternoon had grown to dusk. The two visitors were
evidently expected. Having given the younger of them a deeply respectful
greeting in German, the fur-coated old gentleman shut the door after
them, and proceeded to show the way up a flight of narrow and not
particularly clean wooden stairs.

"Conspiracy doesn't seem to pay," remarked George Brand, half to
himself.

On the landing they were confronted by a number of doors, one of which
the old German threw open. They entered a large, plainly furnished,
well-lit room, looking pretty much like a merchant's office, though the
walls were mostly hung with maps and plans of foreign cities. Brand
looked round with a supercilious air. All his pleasant and friendly
manner had gone. He was evidently determined to make himself as
desperately disagreeable as an Englishman can make himself when
introduced to a foreigner whom he suspects. But even he would have had
to confess that there was no suggestion of trap-doors or sliding panels
in this ordinary, business-like room; and not a trace of a dagger or a
dark lantern anywhere.

Presently, from a door opposite, an elderly man of middle height and
spare and sinewy frame walked briskly in, shook hands with Lord Evelyn,
was introduced to the tall, red-bearded Englishman (who still stood, hat