He replied with a scowl.

“Perhaps your name is ------”

“Winthrop, John Winthrop, if that will throw any light on the subject."’

“One name is as good as another,” with a smile of unbelief.

“That is true.  What’s in a name?  There is little difference, after all, between the names of the nobility and the rabble.”

“You are determined to irritate me beyond measure,” said he.  A German is the most sensitive man in the world as regards his title.

“Grant that I have some cause.  And perhaps,” observing him from the corner of my eye, “it is because you smoke such vile tobacco.”

Remembering the incident in the railway carriage, he smiled in spite of the gravity of the situation.

“It was the best I had,” he said; “and then, it was done in self-defence.  I’ll give you credit for being a fearless individual.  But you haven’t answered my question.”

“What question?”

“Why you returned to this country when you were expressly forbidden to do so.”

“I answered that,” said I.  “And now let me tell you that you may go on asking questions till the crack of doom, but no answer will I give you till you have told me why I am here, I, who do not know you or what your business is, or what I am supposed to have done.”

He began to look doubtful.  He thumped the table with the butt of the pistol.

“Do you persist in affirming that your name is Winthrop?”

“These gardens are very fine.  I could see them better,” said I, “if the window was larger.”

“Perhaps,” he cried impatiently, “you do not know where she is?”

“She?” I looked him over carefully.  There was a perfectly sane light in his eyes.  “Am I crazy, or is it you?  She?  I know nothing about any she!”

“Do you dare deny that you know of the whereabouts of her Serene Highness the Princess Hildegarde, and that you did not come here with the purpose to aid her to escape the will of his Majesty?  And do you mean—­Oh, here, read this!” flinging me a cablegram.

The veil of mystery fell away from my eyes.  I had been mistaken for Hillars.  Truly, things were growing interesting.  I bent and picked up the cablegram and read: 

“Count von Walden:  He has left London and is on his way to the capital.  Your idea to allow him to cross the frontier is a good one.  Undoubtedly he knows where the Princess is in hiding.  In trapping him you will ultimately trap her.  Keep me informed.”

The name signed was that of a well-known military attache at the Embassy in London.  I tossed back the cablegram.

“Well?” triumphantly.

“No, it is not well; it is all very bad, and particularly for you.  Your London informant is decidedly off the track.  The man you are looking for is in Vienna.”

“I do not believe you!  It is a trick.”