It has an extraordinary reputation.

I am sorry to say it, Duncombe, but it is a very bad place for your friend to have disappeared from." "Why ?" "In the first place it is the resort of a good many of the most dangerous people in Europe--people who play the game through to the end.
It is a perfect hot-bed of political intrigue, and it is under police protection." "Police protection! A place like that!" Duncombe exclaimed.
"Not as you and I understand it, perhaps," Spencer explained.

"There is no Scotland Yard extending a protecting arm over the place, and that sort of thing.

But the place is haunted by spies, and there are intrigues carried on there in which the secret service police often take a hand.

In return it is generally very hard to get to the bottom of any disappearance or even robbery there through the usual channels.