ne; the features seemed to have collapsed, and the flesh hung
flabbily, bulging in deep pouches under the eyes and in loose folds at
the corners of the mouth. His head was grizzled an iron-grey but the
hair at the temples was white as driven snow. Only his eyes were
unchanged. They were the same grey, steely eyes, restless, shifting,
unreliable, mirrors of the man's impulsive, wayward and fickle mind.

He lowered at me. His brow was furrowed and his eyes flashed malice. In
the brief instant in which I gazed at him I thought of a phrase a friend
had used after seeing the Kaiser in one of his angry moods--"His icy,
black look."

I was so taken aback at finding myself in the Emperor's presence that I
forgot my part and remained staring in stupefaction at the apparition.
The other was seemingly too busy with his thoughts to notice my
forgetfulness, for he spoke at once, imperiously, in the harsh staccato
of a command.

"What is this I hear?" he said. "Why has not Grundt come? What are you
doing here?"

By this time I had elaborated the fable I had begun to tell in the
corridor without. I had it ready now: it was thin, but it must suffice.

"If your Majesty will allow me, I will explain," I said. The Emperor was
rocking himself to and fro, in nervous irritability, on his feet. His
eyes were never steady for an instant: now they searched my face, now
they fell to the floor, now they scanned the ceiling.

"Dr. Grundt and I succeeded in our quest, dangerous though it was. As
your Majesty is aware, the ... the ... the object had been divided...."

"Yes, yes, I know! Go on!" the other said, pausing for a moment in his
rocking.

"I was to have left England first with my portion. I could not get away.
Everyone is searched for letters and papers at Tilbury. I devised a
scheme and we tested it, but it failed."

"How? It failed?" the other cried.

"With no detriment to the success of our mission, Your Majesty."

"Explain! What was your stratagem?"

"I cut a piece of the lining from a handbag and in this I wrapped a
perfectly harmless letter addressed to an English shipping agent in
Rotterdam. I then pasted the fragment of the lining back in its place in
the bottom of the bag. Grundt gave the bag to one of our number as an
experiment to see if it would elude the vigilance of the English
police."

A light of interest was growing in the Emperor's manner, banishing his
ill-temper. Anything novel always appealed to him.