s, and mounting into the seat beside me,
said--

"To Clifford Street, Ewart, as quick as you can. I want to have five
minutes' talk with you."

So next instant we glided away into the traffic, and I turned up Bond
Street until I reached his chambers, where, when Simmons the valet came
out to mind the car, I ascended to Count Bindo's pretty sitting-room.

"Sit down, Ewart," exclaimed the debonnair young man, who was so
thoroughly a cosmopolitan, and who in his own chambers was known as Mr.
Bellingham, the son of a man who had suddenly died after making a
fortune out of certain railway contracts in the Argentine. "Have a
drink;" and he poured me out a peg of whisky and soda. He always treated
me as his equal when alone. At first I had hated being in his service,
yet now the excitement of it all appealed to my roving nature, and
though I profited little from a monetary point of view, save the
handsome salary I was paid for keeping a still tongue between my teeth,
I nevertheless found my post not at all an incongenial one.

"Look here, Ewart," the Count exclaimed, with scarcely a trace of his
Italian accent, after he had lit a cigarette: "I want to give you
certain instructions. We have a very intricate and ticklish affair to
deal with. But I trust you implicitly, after that affair of the pretty
Mademoiselle Valentine. I know you're not the man to lose your head over
a pretty face. Only fools do that. One can seek out a pretty face when
one has made a pile. You and I want money--not toys, don't we?"

I nodded assent, smiling at his bluntness.

"Well, if this thing comes off, it will mean a year's acceptable rest to
us--not rest within four walls, we can easily obtain that, but rest out
on one or other of the Greek islands, or on the Bosphorus, or somewhere
where we shall be perfectly safe," he said. "Now I want you to start
to-night for Monte Carlo."

"To-night!" I exclaimed, dismayed.

"Yes. You have plenty of time to catch the Dieppe boat at Newhaven. I'll
wire to them to say you are coming--name of Bellingham, of course. I
shall leave by train in the morning, but you'll be at Monty--the Hotel
de Paris--almost as soon as I am. I wouldn't attempt to go by the
Grenoble road, because I heard the other day that there's a lot of snow
about there. Go down to Valence and across to Die."

I was rather sick at being compelled to leave so suddenly. Of late I had
hardly been in London at all. I was very desirous of visitin