ccentric
silk hat of the true chimney-pot type. These were details, and one might
have passed them over. But the man's face was sadly against him. He had
the slyest eyes I have ever seen; that peculiar shifty glance which
invariably sets one against an individual. And thus I became more and
more convinced that we had to deal with some piece of trickery.

We entered the smoking-room where the gas was burning low. A gentleman
stopping at the hotel was snoring in solitary state in one of the arm
chairs. Reaching a table near a window we sat down and at once engaged in
battle.

'I have not brought you a definite answer,' said Wareham to the envoy,
'but this gentleman is in M. Zola's confidence, and wishes further proof
of your bona fides before allowing you to see M. Zola.'

Then I took up the tale, now in French, now in English, for the envoy
spoke both languages. Who was he? I asked. Did he claim to have received
Labori's card from Labori himself? What was the document in the envelope
which he would only deliver to M. Zola in person? And he replied that he
was a diamond-broker. Did I know So-and-So and So-and-So of Hatton
Garden? They knew him well, they did business with him; they could vouch
for his honorability. But no, I was not acquainted with So-and-So and
So-and-So. I never bought diamonds. Besides, it was ten o'clock on
Saturday night, and the parties mentioned were certainly not at their
offices for me to refer to them.

Afterwards the little envoy began to speak of his family connections and
his Paris friends, mentioning various well-known names. But the proofs I
desired were not forth-coming; and when he finally admitted that he had
not received Maitre Labori's card from that gentleman himself, all my
suspicions revived. True he added that it had been given him by a
well-known Revisionist leader to whom Maitre Labori, in a moment of
emergency, having nobody of his own whom he could send abroad, had handed
it.

But what was in the envelope? That was the great question. The envoy
could or would not answer it. He knew nothing certain on that point. Then
we--Wareham and I--brought forward our heavy artillery. We could not
allow a document to be handed to M. Zola under such mysterious
conditions. We must see it. But no, the envoy had strict instructions to
the contrary; he could not show it to us. In that case, we rejoined, he
might take it back to Paris. He had produced no proof of any of his
assertions; for