utterly incomprehensible!  Yet THERE were the directions in plain black and white....  And I could not ask a solitary question!...  In the same shrill voice the man asked:  ‘Have you memorized it?’ I had!  It was burned into my very soul.  I could not forget a syllable of it!...  Without another word he took the note, struck a match and watched it curl into shapeless ashes....  Then making a quick gesture he plunged into the documents before him....  I backed away until the door closed and shut out the sight of the lonely figure enveloped in a green light, his face illuminated against the shadowy background of an underground chamber of the Foreign Office....  On the way to Friedrichstrasse depot I met that girl of the Metropole again!”

IV

WHEN ROYALTY GETS DOUBLE-CROSSED

6.  The next entry was: 

“On the Orient Express, or what was the O.E. before the ’Grosse General Stab’ took over the whole job of mixing up these schedules....  Well, well, well, the veiled lady of the Metropole and Buckingham is in trouble in the next compartment ... at least so she says!...  She just came into my compartment and said she had been insulted by the man who is sharing it with her....  Confound him!...  BUT ...  Now I’ve heard of such ‘plants’ before....  While I’d like to go in there and kick the brute through the partitions I believe discretion is the better part of valor....  Let her call the guard if the case needs attention....  The guard is a reservist and I believe she knows it....  Furthermore, I must be at Donaustrasse 24, Budapest, tomorrow, and meet Colonel Shuvalov at the Hotel de Paris, Belgrade, the day after....  I wonder if that petit Paris looks the same as when I met my old friend Count Arthur Zu Weringrode and Kazimir Galitzyn coquetting with Cecilia Coursan, Mlle. Balniaux and the Petite Valon at the card tables after our sparkling dinners a few years ago....  And where is that fire-eating Prince now?...  He was a great friend of Grey and Churchill at Monte Carlo.... and notwithstanding that meeting in the Taunus they MUST BE friends YET....  The Monte Carlo combination HOLDS good today....  The Taunus meeting so far as Haldane and Winston Spencer were concerned was a frame-up to catch Waechter and ‘His Whiskers’ (both the Admiral and the General)....  That’s where the Wilhelmstrasse FELL DOWN!... and yet I am on a mission of mercy, in behalf of one of the principal double-crossers, today!... Must see Kovalsky at Donau 24 sure....  Mademoiselle must take care of herself today....”

The next entry read: 

“This is a great combination—­Roumania is sidestepping Wilhelmstrasse.... Greece is tying up with Servia, Bulgaria is likely to form a wedge between a complete coalition of these mutually hating and suspicious grafters....  Montenegro is the only honest combination in the whole bunch....  In another hour I will see Kovalsky and astonish him with the news I bring.”