o be seen. I was looking at the press,
with the negative in one hand and the inking-roller in the other, when I
became conscious of a shadow across the window. I looked up quickly, and
there was Mirsky hanging over from some ledge or projection to the side of
the window, and staring straight at me, with a look of unmistakable terror
and apprehension.

"The face vanished immediately. I had to move a table to get at the
window, and by the time I had opened it there was no sign or sound of the
rightful tenant of the room. I had no doubt now of his reason for carrying
a parcel down-stairs. He probably mistook me for another visitor he was
expecting, and, knowing he must take this visitor into his room, threw the
papers and rubbish over the press, and put up his plates and papers in a
bundle and secreted them somewhere down-stairs, lest his occupation should
be observed.

"Plainly, my duty now was to communicate with the police. So, by the help
of my friend the barber down-stairs, a messenger was found and a note sent
over to Scotland Yard. I awaited, of course, for the arrival of the
police, and occupied the interval in another look round--finding nothing
important, however. When the official detective arrived, he recognized at
once the importance of the case. A large number of forged Russian notes
have been put into circulation on the Continent lately, it seems, and it
was suspected that they came from London. The Russian Government have been
sending urgent messages to the police here on the subject.

"Of course I said nothing about your business; but, while I was talking
with the Scotland Yard man, a letter was left by a messenger, addressed to
Mirsky. The letter will be examined, of course, by the proper authorities,
but I was not a little interested to perceive that the envelope bore the
Russian imperial arms above the words 'Russian Embassy.' Now, why should
Mirsky communicate with the Russian Embassy? Certainly not to let the
officials know that he was carrying on a very extensive and lucrative
business in the manufacture of spurious Russian notes. I think it is
rather more than possible that he wrote--probably before he actually got
your drawings--to say that he could sell information of the highest
importance, and that this letter was a reply. Further, I think it quite
possible that, when I asked for him by his Russian name and spoke of 'a
confidential letter,' he at once concluded that _I_ had come from the
embas