I could see.
Five forty-five the next afternoon and I was installed at the Hotel
Metropole in Monte Carlo. After a refreshing bath, I had supper
served in my room, and sent for the hotel courier--this an old
globe-trotter trick. Hotel couriers or dragomen are walking
encylop?¦dias. They are good linguists, observant and shrewd. They
are masters of the art of finding out things they should not know, and
past grand masters in keeping their mouths shut unless you know how to
open them. Not with palm oil. Oh, no, nothing so crude! You would
never get any truths or anything worth while, with bribery.
I had to find out local intrigues and gossips, who was in Monte Carlo
and what was doing, who were the leading demi-mondaines and gamblers?
Were there any possible Secret Service men? Hence the courier, a
Swiss from Ober Arau, a district of Switzerland, I luckily knew well.
When he knocked at the door, I cheerily bade him come in. I made my
manner as good natured as possible. I offered him a real Medijeh
cigarette. As befitting his station, he was slipping the cigarette in
his pocket.
"Oh, no!" I said. "Light it, won't you? Have a little smoke with me
here. I'm a bit lonesome. I want to get my bearings. Won't you join
me in a glass of wine?"
That was my first oar in. After some commonplace conversation, as to
how the season was, I asked:
"Anybody of interest here?"
I winked knowingly.
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