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 all we knew he might have told us a fairy tale, and the mysterious document might simply be a copy of the much dreaded judgment of Versailles.  This suggestion produced a visible impression on the little man, and for half an hour we sat arguing the point.  Finally he began to compliment us:  ‘Oh! you guard him well!’ he said.  ’I shall tell them all about it when I get back to Paris.  But you do wrong to distrust me; I am honourable.  I am well known in Hatton Gardens.  I have done business there, ten, twelve years with So-and-So and So-and-So.  I speak the truth:  you may believe me.’