I am taking no chances.”
“You don’t think”—the Prime Minister hesitated a minute—“that it would be better to open it now?
Surely we ought to secure the document, that is, provided the young man’s guess turns out to be correct, at once.
We can keep the fact of having done so quite secret.”
“Can we?
I’m not so sure.
There are spies all round us.
Once it’s known I wouldn’t give that”—he snapped his fingers—“for the life of those two girls. No, the boy trusted me, and I shan’t let him down.”
“Well, well, we must leave it at that, then.
What’s he like, this lad?”
“Outwardly, he’s an ordinary clean-limbed, rather block-headed young Englishman.
Slow in his mental processes.
On the other hand, it’s quite impossible to lead him astray through his imagination.
He hasn’t got any—so he’s difficult to deceive.
He worries things out slowly, and once he’s got hold of anything he doesn’t let go.
The little lady’s quite different.
More intuition and less common sense.
They make a pretty pair working together.
Pace and stamina.”
“He seems confident,” mused the Prime Minister.
“Yes, and that’s what gives me hope.
He’s the kind of diffident youth who would have to be very sure before he ventured an opinion at all.”
A half smile came to the other’s lips.
“And it is this—boy who will defeat the master criminal of our time?”
“This—boy, as you say!
But I sometimes fancy I see a shadow behind.”
“You mean?”
“Peel Edgerton.”
“Peel Edgerton?” said the Prime Minister in astonishment.
“Yes.
I see his hand in this.” He struck the open letter. “He’s there—working in the dark, silently, unobtrusively.
I’ve always felt that if anyone was to run Mr. Brown to earth, Peel Edgerton would be the man.
I tell you he’s on the case now, but doesn’t want it known.
By the way, I got rather an odd request from him the other day.”
“Yes?”
“He sent me a cutting from some American paper. It referred to a man’s body found near the docks in New York about three weeks ago.
He asked me to collect any information on the subject I could.”
“Well?”
Carter shrugged his shoulders.
“I couldn’t get much.
Young fellow about thirty-five—poorly dressed—face very badly disfigured.
He was never identified.”
“And you fancy that the two matters are connected in some way?”
“Somehow I do. I may be wrong, of course.” There was a pause, then Mr. Carter continued: “I asked him to come round here.
Not that we’ll get anything out of him he doesn’t want to tell.
His legal instincts are too strong.
But there’s no doubt he can throw light on one or two obscure points in young Beresford’s letter. Ah, here he is!”
The two men rose to greet the new-comer.
A half whimsical thought flashed across the Premier’s mind.
“My successor, perhaps!”