“Yes,” said Stepan Lanovitch quietly.  “There is a God in heaven, and at present he is angry with Russia.  Yes, I have details.  Sydney Bamborough came to stay at Thors.  Of course he knew all about the Charity League—­you remember that.  It appears that his wife was waiting for him and the papers at Tver.  He took them from my room, but he did not get them all.  Had he got them all you would not be sitting there, my friend.  The general scheme he got—­the list of committee names, the local agents, the foreign agents.  But the complete list of the League he failed to find.  He secured the list of subscribers, but learned nothing from it because the sums were identified by a numeral only, the clue to the numbers being the complete list, which I burned when I missed the other papers.”

Steinmetz nodded curtly.

“That was wise,” he said.  “You are a clever man, Stepan, but too good for this world and its rascals.  Go on.”

“It would appear that Bamborough rode to Tver with the papers, which he handed to his wife.  She took them to Paris while he intended to come back to Thors.  He had a certain cheap cunning and unbounded impertinence.  But—­as you know, perhaps—­he disappeared.”

“Yes,” said Steinmetz, scratching his forehead with one finger.  “Yes—­he disappeared.”

Karl Steinmetz had one great factor of success in this world—­an infinite capacity for holding his cards.

“One more item,” said the count, in his businesslike, calm way.  “Vassili paid that woman seven thousand pounds for the papers.”

“And probably charged his masters ten,” added Steinmetz.

“And now you must go!”

The count rose and looked at his watch—­a cheap American article, with a loud tick.  He held it out with his queer washed-out smile, and Steinmetz smiled.

The two embraced again—­and there was nothing funny in the action.  It is a singular thing that the sight of two men kissing is conducive either to laughter or to tears.  There is no medium emotion.

“My dear friend—­my very dear friend,” said the count, “God be with you always.  We may meet again—­or we may not.”

Steinmetz walked down the Nevski Prospekt on the left-hand pavement—­no one walks on the other—­and the sleigh followed him.  He turned into a large, brilliantly lighted cafe, and loosened his coat.

“Give me beer,” he said to the waiter; “a very large quantity of it.”

The man smiled obsequiously as he set the foaming mug before him.

“Is it that his Excellency is cold?” he enquired.

“No, it isn’t,” answered Steinmetz.  “Quite the contrary.”

He drank the beer, and holding out his hand in the shadow of the table, he noticed that it trembled only a little.

“That is better,” he murmured.  “But I must sit here a while longer.  I suppose I was upset.  That is what they call it—­upset!  I have never been like that before.  Those lamps in the Prospekt!  Gott! how they jumped up and down!”