"Stop!" Wenzel heard the fatal words before they were even uttered. "As my friend, Arnold, do not question me; do not endeavour to awaken cherished thoughts which must be for ever buried and forgotten." "Geoffrey, I am sorry! I did not realize. I----" "Arnold, please!" His voice was weary. "Remember this. I have no personal feelings left. They are dead, killed in the first case by the Communists, and then again by----" Just in time he stopped himself. Another moment and he might have mentioned Elizabeth's name. "As for the scars... Arnold, I battled with myself for hours that morning. When I awoke in a cell and realized that the Communists had me at last, I knew it to be but a matter of hours before I should be dispatched from this world, but I was not unprepared. When I first became the White Knight I knew that the possibility of my being captured eventually was a hundred to one on, so I took necessary precautions. But for one thing, however, I should never have made use of them. "You never suspected my down-at-heel boots as harbouring any means of escape, did you, Arnold? As a matter of fact, they were not down-at-heel, for both heels were hollow. Inside were two thick sticks of grease-paint, Arnold. I rubbed them well into the wounds; rubbed and rubbed until at last each scar was erased in turn, the thick grease-paint effectively hiding them. After that I powdered them well, so that nothing was noticeable except a white pallor over the whole of my face. Then, on top of it all, dirt; not just a coat of dust which might wipe off, but thick, ingrained dirt. Have you ever rubbed dirt into a greasy substance? It was perfectly effective, as you know." "Good Lord, it is amazing! Yet--forgive me if I hurt your feelings--that much I understand; but the wound across your scalp, your eyebrow, and--and--your twisted cheek?" He choked slightly; it was hard to mention such things to the White Knight himself. Wenzel smiled softly to himself. Poor old Arnold! How his words stumbled! "I had prepared for all that, Arnold. I had ready a little pad, a tiny strip of flesh-coloured canvas, on to which was stuck a not inconsiderable portion of my own hair from another part of the scalp. Liquid gum, similar to that used in theatrical circles, was more than sufficient to keep the shaped canvas in its place. Then I dyed my hair, parted it on the other side--what parting I could induce my cropped hair to display--brushed the remainder the other way, and that scar was concealed. "My eyebrow I treated in exactly the same way. As for my mouth, a tiny little ivory chip inside did the trick, by pulling and keeping the flesh more or less as it should be naturally. Incidentally, it hurt like the Devil, but against that it helped disguise my voice, so it served a double purpose.