“Thank you, Tony. Now what’s the good of you clearing out? If you do, Piggy will send some one else down here, and if Raymond has got mixed up with any of Ember’s devilry, she’ll get caught out. For the Lord’s sake, Tony, see her, let her know you’re alive! I believe she’d chuck the whole thing and go to the ends of the earth with you. Nobody would press the matter. We should catch Ember out, and you and Raymond could go abroad for a bit. I don’t see any other way out of it.” “You seem to me to be assuming a good deal, Henry,” said Anthony Luttrell. “I’m not assuming anything”—Henry’s tone was very blunt. “I know three things.” “Yes?” “One”—Henry ticked his facts off on the fingers of his left hand: “the passages are being used. Two: they’ve been wired for electric light. Three: Raymond has been through them, and quite lately. Those three facts, taken in conjunction with a deposition stating that something of a highly dangerous and anti-social nature is being manufactured on these premises, and under cover of the Government experiments—well, Tony, I don’t suppose you want me to dot the ‘i’s’ and cross the ‘t’s.’” “It never occurred to you that my father might have had the place wired, I suppose?” “He didn’t,” said Henry. “It’s no good, Tony. You can’t bluff me, and I hate your trying to. There’s only one way out of this. You’ve got to see Raymond.” Anthony made an impatient movement. “You assume too much,” he said, “but I’ll put that on one side. From the cold, official standpoint, where does my interview with Lady Heritage come in? Wouldn’t it rather complicate matters? You appear to assume that there is a conspiracy, and then to suggest that I should warn one of the conspirators.” “No, I do not. I ask you to let Raymond know that you are alive, nothing more. In my view nothing more is necessary. She’ll naturally think you are here to see her, and you can let her think so. As to the cold, official standpoint, the last thing that the department would want is a scandal about a woman in Raymond’s position. Piggy would say what I say—for the Lord’s sake get her out of it and let us have a free hand. She’s an appalling complication.” “Women always are,” said Anthony Luttrell in his bitter drawl. He moved a pace or two away, and then turned back again. “You’re not a bad sort in spite of the conscience, Henry,” he said. “From your standpoint, what you’ve just said is sense—good, plain common sense—in fact, exactly the thing which one has no use for in certain moods.” “Scrap the moods, Tony,” said Henry, in an expressionless voice. Anthony laughed, rather harshly.