Anthony Cade accepts Jimmy McGrath’s two-part commission, a handover of manuscripts and letters that sets the novel’s principal action in motion. McGrath asks his friend to collect a promised £1,000 for delivering Count Stylptitch’s memoirs to a London publisher by October 13, and to return a separate packet of blackmail letters to the Englishwoman they concern. Both tasks pass to Cade because McGrath is leaving for Africa and believes his friend can manage the risks of dealing with people in England.

The memoirs and the October deadline

McGrath explains that Count Stylptitch’s memoirs came to him in a queer-looking parcel that had followed him around for an uncertain period. He had seen in a newspaper that the Count had recently died in Paris; inside the parcel was the manuscript, accompanied by a note instructing that a certain London publishing firm should receive it on or before October 13. If McGrath delivered it by that date, the publishers were to pay him £1,000. The arrangement turns the memoirs into a time-sensitive commission, not merely a package to forward: a named deadline and substantial payment attach to their delivery.

The timing conflicts with McGrath’s plans. He has already arranged a journey to the interior and is on his way to Cape Town, passage booked, reluctant to abandon the prospect of gold-hunting for an assignment that might even prove a hoax. He says the manuscript’s erratic journey to him has left him no time to lose. The job therefore requires a substitute who can go to England while McGrath continues toward Africa.

Cade recognizes the practical proposal before McGrath spells out its terms: McGrath will pursue his planned gold-hunting, while Cade collects the thousand pounds on his behalf. Cade asks what share he will receive. McGrath offers a quarter, and Cade accepts the arrangement at £250, joking that he would have taken £100. Their exchange makes the commission a negotiated partnership rather than a simple favor: McGrath retains the larger share of the payment, while Cade takes responsibility for carrying out the errand. They seal the bargain with a solemn toast and a wish for confusion to Castle’s Select Tours.

The letters and the woman at risk

The second commission grows out of an earlier episode in McGrath’s travels. A man known as Dutch Pedro, who had stayed close to McGrath after McGrath helped him, died of fever about six months later. McGrath was with him at the end. As he was dying, Pedro beckoned McGrath, whispered excitedly about what McGrath took to be a secret gold mine, and pressed an oilskin packet into his hand. Pedro had worn the packet next to his skin.

McGrath did not open the packet until a week after Pedro’s death. The supposed secret of a gold mine proved instead to be a woman’s letters, written by an Englishwoman. McGrath concluded that Pedro had been blackmailing her and had passed the letters on as a final piece of leverage. The contents give the second errand its moral urgency: McGrath does not regard them as a valuable secret to exploit, but as evidence of another man’s blackmail and a danger to the woman named in them.

He considers sending the letters directly to her, but fears that the route would expose her. As far as he can tell, she may have a jealous husband; if the husband opened a letter by mistake, the consequences could be grave. The letters also look old enough that the woman might be dead. McGrath’s chosen solution is to have someone take them to England and place them in her own hands, avoiding a potentially dangerous intermediary. He explains that he is glad Cade, rather than someone unfamiliar with such circumstances, will go in his place.

Cade takes responsibility

McGrath asks directly whether Cade will undertake the delivery. Cade agrees without qualification. McGrath then goes to a drawer, takes out a bundle of letters, and throws them onto the table for Cade. Asked whether he needs to inspect them, Cade says he would rather not. The handover thus rests on McGrath’s account of the letters’ origin and risk, and on Cade’s willingness to act without first examining the private material himself.

The two assignments travel together because McGrath’s departure creates the need for a trusted substitute, but they carry different kinds of obligation. The memoir manuscript comes with a publisher, a deadline, and a fee; the letters demand discretion and a personal delivery to protect an unknown woman from renewed exposure. Cade’s acceptance binds him to both: the commercial errand that might bring him £250 and the private errand that McGrath believes could spare someone the consequences of blackmail. The commission launches the plot by placing Cade in possession of two separate packets whose contents and destinations draw him into the affairs of Count Stylptitch and the woman behind the letters.