It was close on midnight when a man crossed the Place de la Concorde.
In spite of the handsome fur coat which garbed his meagre form, there
was something essentially weak and paltry about him.
A little man with a face like a rat. A man, one would say, who could
never play a conspicuous part, or rise to prominence in any sphere.
And yet, in leaping to such a conclusion, an onlooker would have been
wrong. For this man, negligible and inconspicuous as he seemed, played
a prominent part in the destiny of the world. In an Empire where rats
ruled, he was the king of the rats.
Even now, an Embassy awaited his return. But he had business to do
first--business of which the Embassy was not officially cognizant. His
face gleamed white and sharp in the moonlight. There was the least
hint of a curve in the thin nose. His father had been a Polish Jew, a
journeyman tailor. It was business such as his father would have loved
that took him abroad to-night.
He came to the Seine, crossed it, and entered one of the less reputable
quarters of Paris. Here he stopped before a tall, dilapidated house
and made his way up to an apartment on the fourth floor. He had barely
time to knock before the door was opened by a woman who had evidently
been awaiting his arrival. She gave him no greeting, but helped him
off with his overcoat and then led the way into the tawdrily furnished
sitting-room. The electric light was shaded with dirty pink festoons
and it softened, but could not disguise, the girl's face with its mask
of crude paint. Could not disguise, either, the broad Mongolian cast of
her countenance. There was no doubt of Olga Demiroff's profession, nor
of her nationality.
"All is well, little one?"
"All is well, Boris Ivanovitch."