etter from an Italian," he said, "which to the gross
mind may perhaps represent wearisome business details. To a mind of my
calibre, it is clothed in rich possibilities." He leaned across the
table; his eyes lighted up with enthusiasm. "There may be an enormous
fortune in this," and he tapped the letter slowly. "Here is a man who
desires the great English newspaper, of which he has heard (though
Heaven only knows how he can have heard it), to discover the whereabouts
and the identity of a certain M. Fallock."

The veiled man started.

"Fallock," he repeated.

Poltavo nodded.

"Our friend Fallock has built a house 'of great wonder,' to quote the
letter of our correspondent. In this house are buried millions of
lira--doesn't that fire your imagination, dear colleague?"

"Built a house, did he?" repeated the other.

"Our friends tell me," Poltavo went on,--"did I tell you it was written
on behalf of two men?--that they have a clue and in fact that they know
Mr. Fallock's address, and they are sure he is engaged in a nefarious
business, but they require confirmation of their knowledge."

The man at the table was silent.

His fingers drummed nervously on the blotting pad and his head was sunk
forward as a man weighing a difficult problem.

"All child's talk," he said roughly, "these buried treasures!--I have
heard of them before. They are just two imaginative foreigners. I
suppose they want you to advance their fare?"

"That is exactly what they do ask," said Poltavo.

The man at the desk laughed uneasily behind his veil and rose.

"It's the Spanish prison trick," he said; "surely you are not deceived
by that sort of stuff?"

Poltavo shrugged his shoulders.

"Speaking as one who has also languished in a Spanish prison," he
smiled, "and who has also sent out invitations to the generous people of
England to release him from his sad position--a release which could only
be made by generous payments--I thoroughly understand the delicate
workings of that particular fraud; but we robbers of Spain, dear
colleague, do not write in our native language, we write in good, or
bad, English. We write not in vilely spelt Italian because we know that
the recipient of our letter will not take the trouble to get it
translated. No, this is no Spanish prison trick. This is genuine."

"May I see the letter?"

Poltavo handed it across the table, and the man turning his back for a
moment upon his assistant lifted his veil and re