"And he is not nearly so successful," Heureux replied. "Perhaps it is because Americans are not so easily befooled as the English."
"And yet America is, _par excellence_, the country of bluff, of quackery in patent medicines, and of the booming of unworthy persons," the doctor laughed.
"It is fortunate, Doctor, that the public are in ignorance of the real nature of our work, isn't it, eh? Otherwise, you and I might experience rather rough handling if this house were mobbed."
Weirmarsh smiled grimly. "My dear Gustav," he laughed, "the British public, though of late they've browsed upon the hysterics of the popular Press, are already asleep again. It is not for us to arouse them. We profit by their heavy slumber, and this will be a rude awakening--a shock, depend upon it."
"We were speaking of Sir Hugh Elcombe," remarked the other. "He has been of use to us, eh?"
"Of considerable use, but his usefulness is all but ended," replied the doctor. "He will go to France before long, if he does not act as I direct."
"Into a veritable hornet's nest!" exclaimed the red-bearded man. He recognised a strange expression upon the doctor's face, and added, "Ah, I see. This move is intentional, eh? He has served our purpose, and you now deem it wise that--er--disaster should befall him across the Channel, eh?"
"And the girl you spoke of, Enid Orlebar?"
"The girl will share the same fate as her stepfather," was Weirmarsh's hard response. "We cannot risk betrayal."
"She may or she may not. In any case, however, she constitutes a danger, a grave danger, that must, at all costs, be removed." And looking into the other's face, he added, "You understand me?"
Just before two o'clock Gustav Heureux left the frowsy house in Vauxhall Bridge Road and walked through the silent street into Victoria Street.
He was unaware, however, that on the opposite side of the road an ill-dressed man had for a full hour been lurking in a doorway, or that when he came down the doctor's steps, the mysterious midnight watcher strolled noiselessly after him.
ON the rising ground half-way between Wimborne and Poole, in Dorsetshire, up a narrow by-road which leads to the beautiful woods, lies the tiny hamlet of Idsworth, a secluded little place of about forty inhabitants, extremely rural and extremely picturesque.