whose character was well understood by me, I explained
that I had accepted a mission from a friendly Power to travel along
the Siberian Railway and report on its capacity to keep the Army of
Manchuria supplied with food and ammunition in the event of war.

He expressed no surprise when I told him it was essential that I
should leave Petersburg that night, and accordingly it did not take
us long to come to terms.

The service which I required of him was, of course, a fresh passport,
with a complete disguise which would enable me to pass anywhere along
the railway or in Manchuria without being detected or interfered with
by the agents of the Government.

After some discussion we decided that the safest plan would be for me
to travel in the character of a Russian police officer charged with
the detection of the train thieves and card-sharpers who abound on
every great route of travel. I could think of no part which would
serve better to enable me to watch over the safety of the Czar's
envoy without exciting suspicion.

I placed in Rostoy's hands the first instalment of a heavy bribe, and
arranged to return an hour before the departure of the Moscow
express to carry out my transformation.

It was only as I left his office that I remembered my unlucky
engagement to dine that very night with the head of the Manchurian
Syndicate.

I perceived that these hospitalities were well devised checks on my
movements, and it was with something of a shock that I realized that
when I went to dinner that evening with the most active promoter of
the war I should be carrying the Czar's peace despatch in my pocket!

If the enemies of peace had foreseen every step that I was to take in
the discharge of my mission, their measures could not have been more
skilfully arranged.

And as this reflection occurred to me I turned my head nervously, and
remarked a man dressed like a hotel porter lounging carelessly in my
track.

CHAPTER V

A DINNER WITH THE ENEMY

Readers of that prince of romancers, Poe, will recollect a celebrated
story in which he describes the device employed by a man of uncommon
shrewdness to conceal a stolen letter from the perquisitions of the
police, and the elaborate argument by which the writer proves that
the highest art of concealment is to thrust the object to be hidden
under the very nose of the searcher.

But that argument is one of the many mystifications in which the
weird genius of Poe delighte