Page:Vance--The false faces.djvu/219

Rh narrowly escaped insolence, was at once strongly reminiscent and provokingly elusive. …

Pausing a little ways within the room, the fellow clicked heels and bowed punctiliously in Continental fashion, from the hips.

"Colonel Stanistreet, I believe," he said in a sonorous voice—"Karl's" unmistakable voice—"chief of the American bureau of the British Secret Service?"

"I am Colonel Stanistreet," that gentleman admitted. "And you, sir?"

"I have adopted the name of André Duchemin," the impostor stated. "With permission I retain it."

Colonel Stanistreet inclined his head slightly. "As you will. Pray be seated."

He dropped back into his chair, while "Karl" with a murmur of acknowledgment again took the armchair on the far side of the desk, where the lamp stood between him and the secret watcher.

"My secretary tells me you have letters of introduction. …"

"Here." Calmly "Karl" produced and offered those purloined papers.

"You will smoke?" Stanistreet indicated a cigarette-box and leaned back to glance through the letters.

During a brief pause Blensop busied himself with collecting together the documents which had occupied him and began reassorting them, while "Karl," helping himself to a cigarette, smoked with manifest enjoyment.

"These seem to be in order," Stanistreet observed. "I note from this code letter that your true name is Michael Lanyard, you were once a professional French