"Thank you, Sir Joshua. Most lucid, if I may say so. As a clear statement of fact, combined with a sense of vivid narrative, your account could hardly be improved on." "You think, Sir John ..." "When the time comes to make a statement for the newspapers I would not alter a word." Thus did the tongue of the flatterer evade a situation that might have been a trifle awkward for me. I rose at that. "I must leave you now, Sir Joshua," I said, "as I have a great deal to see to and must rejoin Mr. Lashmar. Steps have already been taken, and later on in the day I shall be able to tell you more. Meanwhile I shall see Captain Pring directly the _May Flower_ arrives, and before anyone else. Our future action must depend a great deal on his statement." This was said in my curtest official manner, and then I got out of the room as quickly as I possibly could. Lashmar was waiting, and I took him by the arm and hurried him out of the office. "I've only just heard full details, Lashmar, and pretty bad they are. Now has anything been done--by us, I mean?" "I had two of our patrol ships out at two-thirty this morning cruising over a wide area, sir. They are out still, and reporting every hour. No results, no strange airship seen anywhere. I've been out myself up and down the Irish coast and round the Scillies this morning, more for form's sake than anything else. And I've cabled the whole story, as far as we know it, to the States." "Good! Any reply from them?" "Their police ships are out from Cape Breton to the Bermudas, but they don't seem to have sighted anything out of the ordinary as yet." "Of course, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack along that huge stretch, eight hundred miles if it's an inch. But, as far as I can see, it's up to them; not us." "You think so, sir?" "Why, yes. It's a case of sheer rank and daring piracy. It's been organized with great skill, and the pirates, whoever they are, have command of something quite out-size in the way of a ship. There isn't a works in England where such a boat could be built without our knowing about it before it was launched. And it's dead certain that there's nowhere in these little islands to hide her. Every single bit of spruce and piano wire with a motor-bicycle engine that can fly ten yards has to be registered and licensed by me. No, this is an American stunt." We had been crossing the Hoe as we talked, in the direction of the Citadel, and we now came to the long, low building of Dartmoor stone, which is the Plymouth Headquarters of the A.P. It is perched on the edge of the cliff, and within five yards of the spot where Sir Francis Drake is said to have finished his game of bowls when the Armada was coming up Channel. We passed through the gates, where the police sentry presented arms, and began to walk up and down the terrace.