At the week-end, having given considerable time to jury duties, I was compelled to spend Saturday morning in London on business, and in the afternoon I allowed myself a few hours’ relaxation.  Reaching Wimbledon about eight in the evening I called on Wareham, who received me with a great show of satisfaction; for, said he, my services had been required for some hours past and nobody had known where I might be.  That day, it seemed, just before Wareham had left his Bishopsgate Street office, he had received a visit from a most singular-looking little Frenchman, who had presented one of Maitre Labori’s visiting cards and requested an interview with M. Zola.  Questioned as to his business, the only explanation he would give was that he had with him a document in a sealed envelope which he must place in M. Zola’s own hands.  Wareham had wired to me on the matter, but owing to my absence from home had of course received no reply.  Then, on reaching Wimbledon, he had called on me and found me out.  And, finally, he had gone down to Oatlands and had there seen M. Zola, who had handed him a note authorising Maitre Labori’s messenger to call at the hotel on the morrow.  However, the messenger and his manners had seemed very suspicious to Wareham—­as, indeed, they afterwards seemed to me—­and the question arose, was he a genuine envoy, was the writing on Maitre Labori’s card perchance a forgery, and what was the document in a sealed envelope which was to be handed to nobody but M. Zola himself?  Well, said I at a guess, perhaps it is a copy of the Versailles judgment, and this is simply an impudent attempt to serve it.

Wareham still had Zola’s note in his possession, and we resolved to go to town that evening to interview the messenger and extract from him some decisive proof of his bona fides before allowing matters to go any further.

The envoy’s address was the Salisbury Hotel, Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, which I thought a curious one, being in the very centre of the London newspaper district; and all the way up to town my suspicions of having to do with a ‘plant’ steadily increased.  It was quite ten o’clock when we reached the hotel, and on inquiring for our party found that he had gone to bed.

‘Well,’ said Wareham, sharply, ’he must be roused.  We must see him at once.’

I spoke to the same effect, and the hotel servants looked rather surprised.  I have an idea that they fancied we had come to arrest the man.

In about ten minutes he was brought downstairs.  His appearance was most unprepossessing.  He was very short, with a huge head and a remarkable shock of coal-black hair.  Having hastily risen from bed, he had retained his pyjamas, but a long frock-coat hung nearly to his slippers, and in one hand he carried a pair of gloves, and in the other a huge eccentric 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.