The whole country rang with the affair for a while, as every one will remember. But owing to the importance of the people who were at the house that night, or who were found to be connected with the gang, and the position of many of the girls who were rescued, very few of the details got into the papers. The little book I took from Vining’s flat was found among the Emperor’s papers. The names in it, mostly of persons in high social positions, referred to people whom the Emperor had got into his toils, through drugs, and to whom he had been supplying drugs regularly, to keep them under his thumb. The numbers after their names referred to supplies of these drugs. The girls in the gardens, of whom there were some ten or twelve, were young Russian girls, smuggled into this country, and were mostly peasants. I never heard what became of them. As for Mrs. Fawcette, she was taken to her town house and quietly buried from there. Nothing more was ever said about the manner of her death, although the others know now. The girl who was my dinner companion that first night in the Emperor’s house came to visit me too. And since then she has become a close friend of Margaret’s and mine, as have some of the others whom Margaret saw at that house. The Secret Service alone knew of the extent of the organization which that strange man, the Emperor, had built up about him. After the smash, the mortality, through suicide, among men and women prominent both socially and politically, was simply appalling. But the Department of Justice kept its own counsel and no one else ever knew how many of these people were connected with the Emperor’s organization, and how many were simply his victims who had become drug addicts and had committed suicide when the supply was cut off. And of course some of such deaths may have been coincidences. I am not intending to imply that any one who died suddenly at that time was necessarily involved. But it is certain that many such people were. There were many other details, however, which we were all curious to know. And after some difficulty, Moore at length succeeded in persuading the Chief to come to a little dinner at my apartment. This was after I was well enough to sit up. When the night finally came, there were quite a lot of us gathered around my table. Of course Natalie, Margaret, Moore and Larry were there and the Chief. But in addition we had invited Natalie’s aunt and Mrs. Furneau. I had long since explained to the former the reason for my rudeness over the telephone.