"It was all returned to its various owners. The Baroness sought my aid because she, too, is a member of our Secret Service." "And Naida?" "There was one of our complete successes," Mr. Thomson replied. "No court could have tried Kansky. There was no possible way in which he could have been brought to book for his crimes. The Secret Service undertook to dispose of him and it did." "And what about the boy Arthur Dompers and his tutor Duncombe?" Rose asked. "A little outside our ordinary course of business," Mr. Thomson admitted. "Some one or other, however, managed to convince Scotland Yard that Duncombe meant mischief, and I took the matter up to oblige them." "What about the Duke and the Lorringham jewels?" Leonard enquired. "That affair was passed over to my supervision," our chief explained, "because the Lorringham jewels are looked upon as a sort of national asset in the country, and their retention here is considered advisable for diplomatic reasons." "Tell us," Rose begged, "exactly the meaning of the attack upon you in the Landsdowne Passage." Mr. Thomson made a little grimace. "It simply means," he admitted, "that the agents of the Black Peril have a secret service almost equal to our own. They flattered me so far as to believe that I was the only man likely to render abortive the great stroke which Creslin intended to deliver here. Hence their endeavour to anticipate my activities." "You seem to have unlimited powers," Leonard said thoughtfully. "Doesn't it ever occur to you, sir, to make wider use of them? For instance, every Englishman knows Creslin was a terrible danger to the country. He stood for revolution, disorganisation and anarchy. Why didn't you have him secretly put out of the way?" "Because the men who share with me the responsibilities of my position," Mr. Thomson replied, "my lieutenants and coadjutors, are men of imagination. We try to see a little beyond the actual circumstances with which we are confronted. It would have been the easiest matter in the world for us to have wiped Creslin from the face of the earth, but if we had done so, his principles would have lived after him. Everything except the man's corporal frame would have survived. To-day, a certain amount of the fascination of his doctrines has perished in the morass of ridicule which has sucked the man under. His doctrines never had a moment's chance in this country unless they were preached by a man of personal purity. We did better than slay Creslin. We made him ridiculous." "What made you first approach us at Cromer?" Rose asked, with a touch of feminine curiosity. "What was there about us, I mean, which made you think we might be useful?"