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Haven followed his companion's example and helped himself, only much more moderately, to whisky.

"I'm not in particular need of help," he declared. "I am in a friendly, I might almost say an allied country. In Warsaw I shall be in touch with the whole civilised world."

"It may be true," Patinsky admitted, "that you are in a friendly country—politically—but there is this unfortunate circumstance to be reckoned with. You are in a very wild strip of it. Nobody knows where you are. Anything might happen to you and no one would know for certain where it happened—or who was responsible."

Haven looked steadily at his visitor through the light mist of tobacco smoke and his right hand stole downwards.

"Are you threatening me?" he asked.

Patinsky shrugged his shoulders.

"I should not put it like that," he objected, and his voice had become soft and gentle as a woman's. "I am not threatening you, Mr. Wilfred Haven. Such is not my intention at all. I would remind you, though, that in the event of any little discussion between us, I have at my back a company of well-trained and disciplined soldiers."