A tolerably large sum.

I regret that I have not been able to earn it.' 'Do you mean to tell me,' asked Racksole, horror-struck by this calm confession, in spite of his previous knowledge, 'that you were offered a hundred thousand pounds to poison Prince Eugen ?' 'You put it rather crudely,' said Jules in reply.

'I prefer to say that I was offered a hundred thousand pounds if Prince Eugen should die within a reasonable time.' 'And who were your damnable employers ?' 'That, honestly, I do not know.' 'You know, I suppose, who paid you the first fifty thousand pounds, and who promised you the hundred thousand.' 'Well,' said Jules, 'I know vaguely.

I know that he came via Vienna from--em--Bosnia.

My impression was that the affair had some bearing, direct or indirect, on the projected marriage of the King of Bosnia.
He is a young monarch, scarcely out of political leading-strings, as it were, and doubtless his Ministers thought that they had better arrange his marriage for him.