"Since when has America been using the slums of Leipzig as a breeding-ground?" inquired Storm mildly. "Mecklen, you synthetic Americans make me tired! In case you're interested, I'll say you're nothing more than a fourth-rate Hun thug, and your pal Morini's about as American as you are--which means he's a plain ornery Dago!" He held a consultation with the house-surgeon, and was unaccountably annoyed at the report he received. "Of course, if you insist, Captain Arden, I can do nothing; but I strongly advise against moving him." "How long is it likely to be before we can take him away?" Storm asked, and the doctor spread out his hands. "It may be any time," was his unsatisfactory answer. "I'll do my best to get him patched up as soon as possible--you can be sure of that. But if you move him now, you may be sued for damages later, and that wouldn't do you any good." As Storm drove back along Piccadilly he saw that nearly every poster advertising the early editions of the evening papers bore an enlarged reproduction of the Alpha Triangle. He bought a copy of the _Evening Record_ and found the latest Fleet Street conjectures stunted across four columns and crowned with bloodcurdling headlines. He rang up Susan from Scotland Yard, and had the disappointment of hearing that she was already engaged for lunch. "Lord Hannassay leaves for a holiday the day after to-morrow," she added. "He's going down through Spain, then to Teneriffe, and finishing up with a tour down the West African coast." This was news to Storm, and, incidentally, an unexpected blessing for with Lord Hannassay out of the way a responsibility would be off his hands. "Who are you lunching with?" he demanded jealously. "Uncle Joe." "Damn Uncle Joe!" snarled Storm, and her soft, amused laughter reached his ears before he hung up the receiver. Joe Blaythwayt had come into his own. Few of the callers he interviewed that morning failed to make some remarks about the Triangle, and Joe made the best of the secondhand scraps of out-of-the-way knowledge he had acquired from Inspector Teal. "I know criminals," he would say to the scoffers, with morbid satisfaction. Nevertheless, the Joe Blaythwayt who discussed evil-doers and evil deeds with a Central Detective-Inspector in his leisure moments was a very different man from the Joe Blaythwayt who conducted the business of the Lombard Street branch of the City and Continental Bank. Still alert, eyes still ready to twinkle, frequent of laughter--yes. But eminently practical and business-like. He was business-like when he held his usual weekly interview with Raegenssen in the snug little office to which the roar of traffic came but faintly.