Before starting for the Embassy, Hyde sat down and wrote a couple of rather lengthy letters, both for England, which he addressed, and himself posted at the corner of the Rue Royale.

Thence he went on, down the Faubourg St. Honore, not many hundred yards, and soon passed under the gateway ornamented with the arms of Great Britain, and stood upon what, by international agreement, was deemed a strip of British soil.

He saw an attache, to whom he quickly explained himself.

“You wish to pursue the investigation yourself, I gather?  Is it worth while running such a risk?  Why not hand over the whole business to the Prefecture?  I believe they have already put a watch upon the persons suspected.”

“I have no confidence in their doing it as surely as I would myself.”

Hyde, it will be understood, had his own reasons for not wishing to present himself at the Prefecture.

“You propose to assume a disguise?  As you please; but how can we help you?”

“By giving me papers in exchange for my passport, which you can hold, and by sending after me if I do not reappear within two or three days.”

“You anticipate trouble, then; danger, perhaps.”

“Not necessarily, but it is as well to take precautions.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes; I should like to bring my disguise and put it on here.  In the porter’s lodge, a back office—­anywhere.”

The attache promised to get the ambassador’s permission, which was accorded in due course, and that same afternoon Hyde entered the Embassy a well-dressed English gentleman, and came out an evil-looking ruffian, wearing the blue blouse and high silk cap of the working classes.  One sleeve of the blouse hung loose across his chest, as though he had lost his arm, but his injured limb was safe underneath the garment.  His beard was trimmed close, and on either side of his forehead were two great curls, plastered flat on the temple, after the fashion so popular with French roughs.

In this attire he plunged into the lowest depths of the city.

Amongst the papers seized at the Maltese baker’s in Kadikoi were several that gave an address in Paris.  This place was referred to constantly as the headquarters of the organisation which supplied the Russian enemy with intelligence, and at which a certain mysterious person—­the leading spirit evidently of the whole nefarious company—­was to be found.

“I’ll find out all about him and his confederates before I’m many hours older,” said Hyde, confidently, as he presented himself at the porter’s lodge of a tall, six-storied house, of mean and forbidding aspect, close to the Faubourg St. Martin.  It was let out in small lodgings to tenants as decayed and disreputable as their domicile.

“M.  Sabatier?” asked Hyde, boldly, of the porter.

“On the fifth floor, the third door to the right,” was the reply.