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 guards. He talked, too, about a Black
Stone and a man that lisped in his speech, and he described very
particularly somebody that he never referred to without a shudder--
an old man with a young voice who could hood his eyes like a hawk.
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