ht him wood-pulp propositions,
and had been, he believed, an agent of an American business. The jury
found it a case of suicide while of unsound mind, and the few effects
were handed over to the American Consul to deal with. I gave Scudder a
full account of the affair, and it interested him greatly. He said he
wished he could have attended the inquest, for he reckoned it would be
about as spicy as to read one's own obituary notice.

The first two days he stayed with me in that back room he was very
peaceful. He read and smoked a bit, and made a heap of jottings in a
note-book, and every night we had a game of chess, at which he beat me
hollow. I think he was nursing his nerves back to health, for he had
had a pretty trying time. But on the third day I could see he was
beginning to get restless. He fixed up a list of the days till June
15th, and ticked each off with a red pencil, making remarks in
shorthand against them. I would find him sunk in a brown study, with
his sharp eyes abstracted, and after those spells of meditation he was
apt to be very despondent.

Then I could see that he began to get edgy again. He listened for
little noises, and was always asking me if Paddock could be trusted.
Once or twice he got very peevish, and apologized for it. I didn't
blame him. I made every allowance, for he had taken on a fairly stiff
job.

It was not the safety of his own skin that troubled him, but the
success of the scheme he had planned. That little man was clean grit
all through, without a soft spot in him. One night he was very solemn.

'Say, Hannay,' he said, 'I judge I should let you a bit deeper into
this business. I should hate to go out without leaving somebody else
to put up a fight.' And he began to tell me in detail what I had only
heard from him vaguely.

I did not give him very close attention. The fact is, I was more
interested in his own adventures than in his high politics. I reckoned
that Karolides and his affairs were not my business, leaving all that
to him. So a lot that he said slipped clean out of my memory. I
remember that he was very clear that the danger to Karolides would not
begin till he had got to London, and would come from the very highest
quarters, where there would be no thought of suspicion. He mentioned
the name of a woman--Julia Czechenyi--as having something to do with
the danger. She would be the decoy, I gathered, to get Karolides out
of the care of his guard