"Don't mention it--don't mention it, I assure you. I trust you delivered
it safely."

He had given me the key to the mystery. The letter for the Russian consul
was the cause of Meeker's attentions to me! And, instead of being a
newspaper correspondent, to Meeker I was a Russian agent, probably a spy!
It was all I could do to restrain myself from laughing in his face.

"Delivered it safely," I repeated inanely. "It was only an errand for a
friend of mine, and I left it at the--"

He waited for me to finish the sentence. He forgot himself and failed to
conceal his assumed nonchalance regarding the letter, for, as I cut off
what I was saying, he held his fork poised over his lamb, so intent was
he on learning where I had delivered the letter for the Russian consul.

I seized a glass of water and struggled with an imaginary obstruction in
my throat, and mentally cursing my stupidity in telling my friend's
private business to a stranger who had already betrayed an inordinate
interest in the letter.

"Where did you leave it?" purred Meeker.

"At the post-office," I finished, amazed at his boldness in pursuing the
destination of the letter, and having no qualms of conscience about
telling him a falsehood. I did not regard it as any of his affair where I
had delivered the letter, and did not intend to inform him I had left the
bulky envelope at the Hong-Kong-Shanghai Bank.

The image of the bank-front which crossed my mind gave me another clue to
Meeker's solicitude about me and the letter. I remembered seeing a sign
over the teller's window, which stated that the bank was a branch of a
Russian financial house. What could be more natural for a Russian spy
than to cash his drafts in a place which dealt with Vladivostok and Port
Arthur, or even St. Petersburg and Moscow?

And, if he took me for a spy in the Russian service, it followed that
he must be watching me for the Japanese, and it was probable that the
cable-agent in Saigon was in the service of the Czar and found it
convenient to deliver an important document with my assistance.

At that time Manila was the headquarters for blockade-runners bound for
Port Arthur, and Russian and Japanese spies, from coolies to bankers,
were watching every ship and every stranger. So it was not strange that
I, coming from French Indo-China, with a dispatch for the Russian consul,
should be mistaken for a spy by Meeker the instant he read the address on
the envelope and saw the