“That’s it! That’s it, exactly!” She leaned toward me, laughing. “I’ve always known there was some key to it, but nobody’s been able to find it before. You’ve solved our national problem.”
“For reward, then, I should be given all the information you have about Grantham.”
“You should, but I’ll have to speak to His Excellency first. He’ll wake presently.”
“You can tell me unofficially what you think of Grantham. You know him?”
“Yes. He’s charming. A nice boy, delightfully naive, inexperienced, but really charming.”
“Who are his friends here?”
She shook her head and said:
“No more of that until His Excellency wakes. You’re from San Francisco? I remember the funny little street cars, and the fog, and the salad right after the soup, and Coffee Dan’s.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Twice. I was in the United States for a year and half, in vaudeville, bringing rabbits out of hats.”
We were still talking about that half an hour later when the door opened and the Minister of Police came in.
The oversize furniture immediately shrank to normal, the girl became a midget, and I felt like somebody’s little boy.
This Vasilije Djudakovich stood nearly seven feet tall, and that was nothing to his girth. Maybe he wouldn’t weigh more than five hundred