killed,' said Luker cold-bloodedly. 'Would you call that a murder plot?'
'Of course not,' boomed the general authoritatively. 'That's quite a different matter. That's political. It's the same as war. Anyhow, as Fairweather says, we don't know anything about it—not officially.'
'If the plot should fail, and if all the details should be discovered, I'm afraid we could not plead our official ignorance,' Luker replied smoothly. 'You see, before he was killed young Kennet gave certain papers to Lady Valerie. You know what was among them. She placed these documents, unread, in a cloakroom—from what has happened since it seems likely that they were at Paddington. If we could have recovered them it would have been all right; even if she had seen the one vital thing, I don't think she would have understood. I tried to make arrangements to deal with her and Templar last night, but those arrangements miscarried. Templar then appears to have kidnapped her. She escaped, returned to London and presumably recovered the papers from where she had left them. From the telegram Fairweather showed me I suspected she might have gone to Anford. I sent two men down in a fast car. They reported to me by telephone that she was at the Golden Fleece and that Templar had arrived soon after her.'
'Probably they arranged to meet there,' put in Lady Sangore. 'I always knew she was a hussy. Whatever happens to her, she's brought it on herself.'
'That thought will doubtless console her greatly,' Luker observed. 'However, Fairweather had meanwhile been stupid enough to show Lady Valerie's telegram to a detective who was with him when it arrived. Much later Scotland Yard apparently also guessed, or discovered, that she had taken a train to Anford. They must have telephoned the Anford police, because two officers arrived at the Golden Fleece and went upstairs. I don't know what Templar told them, and I don't think he can have said anything about the documents which by that time he must have read, because not long afterwards the officers came out with Templar and Lady Valerie, all apparently on the most friendly terms, and allowed them to get into a car and drive away. My men overtook them on the road, carrying out my orders to recover the papers, to capture Templar and Lady Valerie alive if possible and to hold them until I gave instructions how they were to be disposed of.'
There was a stricken silence while Luker's point forced itself home. This time Fairweather was the first to regain his voice.
'But—but—for goodness sake, Luker, really, you can't murder a girl!'
'Why not?' Luker inquired blandly.
Sangore appeared to grope in darkness for an answer.
'It . . . Well, dammit, man—it simply isn't done,' he ;aid feebly.
Luker laughed. There was nothing hearty about his laughter. It was a silent, terrifying performance, as if a stone image had quaked with unholy mockery.
'You gentlemen of England, with your pettifogging conventions and your arrogant righteousness and your old school ties; you whitewashed dummies,' he sneered. 'You don't care what dirty work is done so long as you don't have to know about it 'officially'; you don't care how many people are murdered so long as you can call it warfare, or dignify it with the adjective 'political.' You don't mind helping to start a civil war in France, in which it's quite certain that numbers of girls will be killed, do you?'
'I tell you that's different,' stormed the general. 'Why —why, we've had civil wars in England!'
He said it as if that fact proved that civil wars must be all right.
'Very well,' Luker went on. 'And you didn't object to murdering Kennet and Windlay, did you ?'
Fairweather said hoarsely: 'We had nothing to do with that. In fact, I told you ——'
