A SMILE flickered over his drawn face. “I’m not mad — yet. I need help worse than any man ever needed it, and I want to know if I can count you in.”

“Get on with your yarn,” I said, “and I’ll tell you.”

He then started on the queerest rigmarole. Away behind all the Governments and the armies there was a big subterranean movement going on, engineered by very dangerous people. Most were the sort of educated anarchists that make revolutions, but beside them there were financiers who were playing for money. He explained a lot that had puzzled me — things that happened in the Balkan War, how one state suddenly came out on top, why alliances were made and broken, why certain men disappeared, and where the sinews of war came from.

The aim of the whole conspiracy was to get Russia and Germany at loggerheads. When I asked why, he said that the anarchist lot thought it would give them their chance. Everything would be in the melting-pot, and they looked to see a new world emerge.