“Single-handed you could do nothing.  You would need friends.”

Wogan took a slip of paper from his pocket and gave it to the Prince.

“On that slip,” said he, “I wrote down the names of all the friends whom I could trust, and by the side of the names the places where I could lay my hands upon them.  One after the other I erased the names until only three remained.”

The Prince nodded and read out the names.

“Gaydon, Misset, O’Toole.  They are good men?”

“The flower of Ireland.  Those three names have been my comfort these last three weeks.”

“And all the three at Schlestadt.  How comes that about?”

“Your Highness, they are all three officers in Dillon’s Irish regiment, and so have that further advantage.”

“Advantage?”

“Your Highness,” said Wogan, “Schlestadt is near to Strasbourg, which again is not far from Innspruck, and being in French territory would be the most convenient place to set off from.”

There was a sound of a door shutting; the Prince started, looked at Wogan, and laughed.  He had been upon the verge of yielding; but for that door Wogan felt sure he would have yielded.  Now, however, he merely walked away to the Countess of Berg, and sitting beside her asked her to play a particular tune.  But he still held the slip of paper in his hand and paid but a scanty heed to the music, now and then looking doubtfully towards Wogan, now and then scanning that long list of names.  His lips, too, moved as though he was framing the three selected names, Gaydon, Misset, O’Toole, and “Schlestadt” as a bracket uniting them.  Then he suddenly rose up and crossed the room to Wogan.

“My daughter wrote that a woman must attend her.  It is a necessary provision.”

“Your Highness, Misset has a wife, and the wife matches him.”

“They are warned to be ready?”

“At your Highness’s first word that slip of paper travels to Schlestadt.  It is unsigned, it imperils no one, it betrays nothing.  But it will tell its story none the less surely to those three men, for Gaydon knows my hand.”

The Prince smiled in approval.

“You have prudence, Mr. Warner, as well as audacity,” said he.  He gave the paper back, listened for a little to the Countess, who was bending over her harp-strings, and then remarked, “The Prince’s letter was in his own hand too?”

“But in cipher.”

“Ah!”

The Prince was silent for a while.  He balanced himself first on one foot, then on the other.

“Ciphers,” said he, “are curious things, compelling to the imagination and a provocation to the intellect.”

Mr. Wogan kept a grave face and he replied with unconcern, though his heart beat quick; for if the Prince had so much desire to see the Chevalier’s letter, he must be well upon his way to consenting to Wogan’s plan.

“If your Highness will do me the honour to look at this cipher.  It has baffled the most expert.”