Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/18

 seven years ago. Since then it’s been a Republic. Altogether a very likely spot. You might have mentioned before that Herzoslovakia came into it.”

“It doesn’t except indirectly.”

Anthony gazed at him more in sorrow than in anger.

“You ought to do something about this, James,” he said. “Take a correspondence course, or something. If you’d told a story like this in the good old Eastern days, you’d have been hung up by the heels and bastinadoed or something equally unpleasant.”

Jimmy pursued his course quite unmoved by these strictures.

“Ever heard of Count Stylptitch?”

“Now you’re talking,” said Anthony. “Many people who have never heard of Herzoslovakia would brighten at the mention of Count Stylptitch. The Grand Old Man of the Balkans. The Greatest Statesman of Modern Times. The biggest Villain unhung. The point of view all depends on which newspaper you take in. But be sure of this, Count Stylptitch will be remembered long after you and I are dust and ashes, James. Every move and counter move in the Near East for the last twenty years has had Count Stylptitch at the bottom of it. He’s been a dictator and a patriot and a statesman—and nobody knows exactly what he has been, except that he’s been a perfect King of intrigue. Well, what about him?”

“He was Prime Minister of Herzoslovakia—that’s why I mentioned it first.”

“You’ve no sense of proportion, Jimmy. Herzoslovakia is of no importance at all compared to Stylptitch. It just provided him with a birthplace and a post in public affairs. But I thought he was dead?”

“So he is. He died in Paris about two months ago. What I’m telling you about happened some years ago.”

“The question is,” said Anthony, “what are you telling me about?”

Jimmy accepted the rebuke and hastened on.

“It was like this. I was in Paris—just four years ago, to be exact. I was walking along one night in rather a lonely part, when I saw half a dozen French toughs beating up a respectable-looking old gentleman. I hate a one-sided show, so I promptly butted in and proceeded to beat up the toughs. I