"Is there any gambling here?" he inquired.

The secretary shrugged his shoulders.

"I am afraid that some of them go a little beyond the club points,"
he answered. "You see that table against the wall? They are playing
shilling auction there."

The table near the wall was, perhaps, the most silent. The visitor
looked at it last and most curiously.

"Who is the dissipated-looking boy playing there?" he asked.

"Prince Albert of Trent," the secretary answered.

"And who is the little man, rather like Napoleon, who sits in the
easy-chair and watches?"

"The Baron de Grost."

"Never heard of him," the visitor declared.

"He is a very rich financier who has recently blossomed out in London,"
the secretary said. "One sees him everywhere. He has a good-looking
wife, who is playing in the other room."

"A good-looking wife," the visitor remarked, thoughtfully. "But, yes! I
thank you very much, Mr. Courtledge for showing me round. I will find my
friends now."

He turned away, leaving Courtledge alone, for a minute or two, on the
threshold of the card room. The secretary's attention was riveted upon
the table near the wall, and the frown on his face deepened. Just as he
was moving off, the Baron de Grost rose and joined him.

"They are playing a little high in here this evening," the latter
remarked quietly.

Courtledge frowned.

"I wish I had been in the club when they started," he said, gloomily.
"My task is all the more difficult now."

The Baron de Grost looked pensively, for a moment, at the cigarette
which he was carrying.

"By the bye, Mr. Courtledge," he asked, with apparent irrelevance, "what
was the name of the tall man with whom you were talking just now?"

"Count von Hern. He was brought in by one of the attaches at the German
Embassy."

Baron de Grost passed his arm through the secretary's and led him a
little way through the corridor.

"I thought I recognized our friend," he remarked. "His presence here
this evening is quite interesting."

"Why this evening?"

Baron de Grost avoided the question.

"Mr. Courtledge," he said, "I think that you will allow me to ask you
something without thinking me impertinent. You know that my wife and I
have taken some interest in Prince Albert. It is on his account, is it
not, that you look so gloomy to-night, as though you had an execution in
front of you?"

Courtledge nodded.

"I am afraid," he announced, "that we have come to the end of our tether