ast few minutes, except that he carried a small but heavy
pack, and walked heavily, leaning on his thick staff like a man wearied
with a long day's tramp.

Now I found he had halted, and as I came abreast with him, he held out
one skinny hand with an arresting gesture. For a moment I thought he was
merely begging, but his first words dispelled that notion.

"Is it wise of the English excellency to walk abroad alone,--here?" he
asked earnestly, in a voice and patois that sounded queerly familiar. I
stopped short and stared at him, and then, in a flash, I knew him,
though as yet he had not recognized me, save as a foreigner.

He was the old Jew who had come to my flat on the night of Cassavetti's
murder!

[Illustration: _Then, in a flash, I knew him._ Page 228]

CHAPTER XXXV

A BAFFLING INTERVIEW

"It is less safe than the streets of London, perhaps," I said quietly,
in Russian. "But what of that? And how long is it since you left there,
my friend?"

He peered at me suspiciously, and spread his free hand with the quaint,
graceful gesture he had used before. I'd have known the man anywhere by
that alone; though in some ways he looked different now, less frail and
emaciated than he had been, with a wiry vigor about him that made him
seem younger than I had thought him.

"The excellency mistakes!" he said. "How should such an one as I get to
London?"

"That is for you to say. I know only that you are the man who wanted to
see Vladimir Selinski. And now you've got to come and see me, at once,
at the inn kept by Moses Barzinsky."

"Speak lower, Excellency," he stammered, glancing nervously around. "In
God's name, go back to your inn. You are in danger, as all strangers are
here; yea, and all others! That is why I warned you. But you mistake. I
am not the man you think, so why should I come to you? Permit me to go
on my way."

He made as if to move on, and I couldn't detain him forcibly and insist
on his accompanying me, for that would have drawn attention to us.
Fortunately there were few people hereabouts, but those few were
already looking askance at us.

An inspiration came to me. I thought of the red symbol that had dangled
from the key of Cassavetti's flat that night, and of the signal and
password Mishka had taught me in Petersburg.

In two strides I caught up with him, touched his shoulder with the five
rapid little taps, thumb and fingers in succession, and said in his ear:
"You will come to