"It would be rather extravagant," I objected, "after we've just pulled him out." Latimer smiled. "I am not sure I don't deserve it. I have lied to you, Morrison, all through in the most disgraceful manner." Then he paused. "Still it _would_ be extravagant," he added. "I think I can convince you of that before we get to Queenborough." Tommy throttled down the engine to about its lowest running point. "Look here, Latimer," he said. "We're not going to Queenborough, or anywhere else, until we've got the truth out of you. You understand that, of course. You've put yourself in our power deliberately, and you must have some reason. One doesn't cut one's throat for fun." He spoke in his usual pleasant fashion, but there was a grim seriousness behind it which no one could pretend to misunderstand. Latimer, at all events, made no attempt to. He merely nodded his head approvingly. "You're quite right," he said. "I had made up my mind you should hear some of the truth tonight in any case; that was the chief reason why I asked you to come and pick me up. When I saw you had brought Mr. Lyndon with you, I determined to tell you everything. It's the simplest and best way, after all." He stopped for a moment, and we all three sat there in silence, while the _Betty_ slowly throbbed her way forward, splashing off the black water from either bow. Then Latimer began to speak again quite quietly. "I _am_ in the Secret Service," he said; "but you can forget the rest of what I told you the other night, Morrison. I am after bigger game than a couple of German spies--though they come into it right enough. I am on the track of three friends of Mr. Lyndon's, who just now are as badly wanted in Whitehall as they probably are in hell." I leaned back with a certain curious thrill of satisfaction. "I thought so," I said softly. He glanced at me with his keen blue eyes, and the light of the lamp shining on his face showed up its square dogged lines of strength and purpose. It was a fine face--the face of a man without weakness and without fear. "It's nearly twelve months ago now," he continued, "that we first began to realize at headquarters that there was something queer going on. There's always a certain amount of spying in every country--the sort of quiet, semi-official kind that doesn't do any one a ha'porth of practical harm. Now and then, of course, somebody gets dropped on, and there's a fuss in the papers, but nobody really bothers much about it. This was different, however. Two or three times things happened that did matter very much indeed. They were the sort of things that showed us pretty plainly we were up against something entirely new--some kind of organized affair that had nothing on earth to do with the usual casual spying.