"And now I am coming out to hear all that you clever people suggest," she said. "Please don't look alarmed. I have been talking all the afternoon and have been narrating my sad experience--such as I remember--to the most important people. Cabinet Ministers and police commissioners and doctors and things."
"I was wondering what that was," she laughed. "You haven't been buying me reading-matter?"
He nodded, and held the volume so that she could read the title.
"'A Friend in Need,' by S. Beale. I didn't know you wrote!" she said in surprise.
"I am literary and even worse," he said flippantly. "I see you have a shelf of books here. If you will allow me I will put it with the others."
"I just want to tell you all you have said about van Heerden is true. He is a most dangerous man. He may yet be dangerous to you. I don't want you to touch that little book unless you are in really serious trouble. Will you promise me?"
"Of course I'll promise you, but I don't quite understand."
He opened the door for her and she passed out ahead of him. Kitson came to meet them.
"I suppose there is no news?" asked Stanford.
"None," said the other, "except high political news. There has been an exchange of notes between the Triple Alliance and the German Government. All communication with the Ukraine is cut off, and three ships have been sunk in the Bosphorus so cleverly that our grain ships in the Black Sea are isolated."
He walked to the table. It was littered with maps and charts and printed tabulations. McNorton got up and joined them.
"I have just had a 'phone message through from the Yard," he said. "Carter, my assistant, says that he's certain van Heerden has not left London."
"Glaum? No, she's as dumb as an oyster. I doubt if you would get her to speak even if you put her through the third degree, and we don't allow that."
"Unlock it somebody," said Kitson. "I turned the key."
The nearest person was the member of the Corn Exchange Committee, and he clicked back the lock and the door opened to admit a waiter.
"There's a man here----" he said; but before he could say more he was pushed aside and a dusty, dishevelled figure stepped into the room and glanced round.
"My name is Milsom," he said. "I have come to give King's Evidence!"