"I promised Pat that we'd save Larry, and I promised myself that we'd save her," I went on. "Jack and I have an exalted idea of your cleverness about conducting cars and affairs in general, so we decided to ask you to help us conspire. It was really you who made the success of the venture at Kidd's Pines, by your marvellous conjuring trick of getting Marcel Moncourt to come. We felt, if you could do a thing like that you could do anything. But my gracious, you look as if you'd resort to murder! We don't want you to go as far as that." "I would if necessary," Peter said, "but I think it won't be necessary. We'll scotch our snake, not kill him." "The snake doesn't love _you_," I ventured. "I've sometimes thought he'd do all he could to hurt you. But--but I suppose he couldn't do anything very troublesome, could he, even if you envenomed him a little more?" "He might be able to upset some of my arrangements," said Peter, "but in upsetting them, his own would be under the avalanche." I saw by his look that this wasn't just a joke. The Stormy Petrel meant _something in particular_, something he didn't intend to explain to Jack or me; and all my old feeling about his mysteriousness came back. "I should feel guilty," I said, "if by asking you to plot with us, I'd induced you to mix yourself up in a business which might be annoying." "However it turns out, it won't be annoying," Peter answered. "Things have gone far beyond that. If I choose, Mrs. Winston, I can put Caspian out of the running to-morrow. Money has given him power to use this situation for his own advantage. If he lost it----" "Heavens, man, if he lost it, don't you see that Patricia Moore's the sort of girl to feel she owed him allegiance?" broke in Jack, who had so far confined himself to listening. "Any one who could take Caspian's money away would be _giving_ him the girl." As I heard this, I realized how _very_ clever Jack is, for neither Peter Storm nor I had thought of that, though it was absolutely true. He and I would have rushed wildly ahead and broken every bank Caspian had a cent in, if we could. But we both had the wisdom to realize instantly that Jack was right about Pat. "We mustn't do anything serious to begin with," I said. "Let's see if we can't think of something _silly_, like the mouse gnawing the net that had caught the lion. Another lion trying to do that would only have tangled up his teeth. Can you condescend to think of a thoroughly silly and frivolous trick?" "I've thought of one," said Peter, "without condescending at all. As you say, we won't begin by tearing the net; we'll unravel it. What do you think would have happened to you, Mrs. Winston, before you were married, if you'd had to travel day after day in a motor car with a man you already disliked?" "I _know_ what would have happened. It did happen!" Jack and I tossed each other a smile across the memory of Jimmy Payne. "I got to _loathe_ him. I see what's in your head--don't I?"