"It was rather a peculiar place to come on unexpectedly," continued Miss Lisle. "It had originally been a powder works, and the old notices warning intruders had been left standing; as a matter of fact a stranger would probably still take it to be a powder mill, but one learned locally that it was the depot and distributing centre of an artificial manure company with a valuable secret process. Which, of course, made it less interesting than explosives."

"And less dangerous," suggested Salt, smiling.

"I don't know," shot back Miss Lisle with a glance. "Mark the precautions. There was the stream almost enclosing this place--the size, I suppose, of a considerable farm--and in the powder mill days it had been completely turned into an island by digging a ca.n.a.l or moat at the narrowest point of the bend. Immediately on the other side of the water rose the high brick wall topped with iron spikes. The one bridge was the only way across the stream, the one set of double doors, as high as the wall, the only way through beyond. Inside was thickly wooded. I don't suggest wild animals, you know, but savage dogs would not surprise me.

"As I stood there, concluding that I should have to turn back, I heard a heavy motor coming down the lane. It came on very quickly as though the driver knew the twisting road perfectly, shot across the bridge, the big gates fell open apparently of their own accord, and it pa.s.sed inside. I had only time to note that it was a large trade vehicle with a square van-like body, before the gates had closed again."

Miss Lisle paused for a moment, but she had by no means reached the end of her pointless adventure.

"I had seen no one but the motor driver, but I was mistaken in thinking that there was no one else to see, for as I stood there undecided a small door in the large gate was opened and a man came out. He was obviously the gate-keeper, and in view of the notices I at once concluded that he was coming to warn me off, so I antic.i.p.ated him by asking him if he could lend me a spanner. He muttered rather surlily that if I waited there he would see, and went back, closing the little door behind him. I thought that I heard the click of a self-acting lock.

Presently he came back just as unamiable as before and insisted on s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the bolt himself--to get me away the sooner, I suppose. He absolutely started when I naturally enough offered him sixpence--I imagine the poor man doesn't get very good wages--and went quite red as he took it."

"And all ended happily?" remarked Salt tentatively, as though he had expected that a possible relevance might have been forthcoming after all.

"Happily but perplexingly," replied Miss Lisle, looking him full in the face as she unmasked the point of her long pointless story. "For the surly workman who was embarra.s.sed by sixpence was my gentlemanly neighbour of the Queen's Hall meeting, and I was curious to know how he should be serving the object of the League by acting as a gate-keeper to the Lacon Equalised Superphosphate Company."

Salt laughed quietly and looked back with unmoved composure. "No doubt many possible explanations will occur to you," he said with very plausible candour. "The simplest is the true one. Several undertakings either belong to the League or are closely connected with it, for increasing its revenue or for other purposes. The Lacon is one of these."

"And I don't doubt that even the position of doorkeeper is a responsible one, requiring the intelligence of an educated gentleman to fill it,"

retorted Miss Lisle. "It must certainly be an exacting one. You know better than I do how many great motor vans pa.s.s down that quiet little lane every hour. They bear the names of different companies, they are ingeniously different in appearance, and they pa.s.s through London by various roads and by-roads. But they have one unique resemblance: they are all driven by mechanics who are astonishingly disconcerted by the offer of stray sixpences and shillings! It is the same at the little private wharf on the ca.n.a.l a mile away. It was quite a relief to find that the bargemen were common human bargees!"

Salt still smiled kindly. The slow, silent habit gives the best mask after all. "And why have you come to me?" he asked.

"Because I _know_ that you are going to do something, and I want to help. I loathe the way things are being done down there." The nod meant the stately Palace of Westminster, though it happened to be really in the direction of Charing Cross, but it was equally appropriate, for the monuments of the Government, like those of Wren, lay all around. "Who can go on playing tennis as usual when an amba.s.sador who learned his diplomacy in a Slaughter-hous.e.m.e.n's Union represents us by acting alternately as a fool and a cad before an astounded Paris? Or have an interest in bridge when the Sultan of Turkey is contemptuously ordering us to keep our fleet out of sight of Mitylene and we apologise and obey?

I will be content to address envelopes all day long if it will be of any use. Surely there are other secret processes down other little lanes? I will even be the doorkeeper at another artificial manure works if there is nothing else!"

Salt sat thinking, but from the first he knew that for good or ill some degree of their confidence must be extended to a woman. It is the common experience of every movement when it swells beyond two members: or conspiracies would be much more dangerous to their foes.

"It may be monotonous, perhaps even purposeless as far as you can see,"

he warned. "I do not know yet, and it will not be for you to say."

Miss Lisle flushed with the pleasurable thrill of blind sacrifice. "I will not question," she replied. "Only if there should be any need you might find that an ordinary uninteresting middle-cla.s.s girl with a slangy style and a muddy complexion could be as devoted as a Flora Macdonald or a Charlotte Corday."

Salt made a quiet deprecating gesture. "A girl with a fearless truthful face can be capable of any heroism," he remarked as he began to write.

"Especially when she combines exceptional intelligence with exceptional discretion. Only," he added as an afterthought, "it may be uncalled-for, and might be inconvenient in a law-abiding const.i.tutional age."

"I quite understand that now; the conscientious addressing of circulars shall bound my horizon. Only, please let me be somewhere in it, when it _does_ come."

"I say, Salt," drawled an immaculately garbed young man, lounging into the room, "do you happen----"

Miss Lisle, who had been cut off from the door by a screen, rose to leave.

"Oh, I say, I beg your pardon," exclaimed the young man. "They told me that you were alone."

"I shall be disengaged in a moment," replied Salt formally. "At ten o'clock to-morrow morning then, Miss Lisle, please." She bowed and withdrew, the Honourable Freddy Tantroy, who had lingered rather helplessly, holding the door as she went out and favouring her with a criticising glance.

"Always making rotten a.s.s of myself," murmured that gentleman plaintively. "General Office fault. Engaging lady clerk? Not bad idea, but you might have gone in for really superior article while you were about it. Cheaper in the end. Oh, I don't know, though."

"Miss Lisle came with the best of recommendations," said Salt almost distantly. One might have judged that he had no desire for Mr Tantroy's society, but that reasons existed why he should not tell him so.

"Yes, I know," nodded Freddy sagely; "they do. Hockey girl, I should imagine. Face of the pomegranate type, carved by amateur whose hand slipped when he was doing the mouth. Prefer the pink and pneumatic style myself. Matter taste."

Salt made no reply. The only possible reply was the one he denied himself. He occupied the time by burning a sc.r.a.p of paper with a single row of figures.

"I say, Salt. I was really coming about something, but I've forgotten what," announced the honourable youth after a vacuous pause. "Oh, I remember. That elusive old cheesecake of a hunk of mine. Do you happen to know where the volatile Sir John is to be unearthed?"

"I imagine that your uncle is in Paris at this moment," replied Salt.

"He is expected back to-morrow."

"Paris!" exclaimed Freddy with some interest. "Good luck at the Pink Windmill, old boy! Anything in the air, Salt? Projected French landing at Brighton pier next week? Seriously, don't you think League bit of gilded fizzle? Expected something with coloured lights long ago."

"I think that we have every reason to be satisfied with the progress,"

replied Salt. "The weight of a great organisation must exercise some influence in the end."

"Oh yes," retorted Mr Tantroy with a cunning look. "That's the other face of double-headed Johnny they have stuffed in museums. Well, all in good time, little Freddy, if you sit quiet." He carried out this condition literally for a couple of minutes, gazing pensively at a slender ring he wore. Then: "I'll tell you what, Salt," he continued. "I wish you'd use benign influence with Sir John. Tired of apeing the golden a.s.s, and I am thinking of settling down. Want an office here and absolutely grinding hard work ten to four, and couple of thousand a year or so until I'm worth more. Fact is, met girl I could absolutely exist for ever with in gilded bird-cage. Been Vivarium lately?"

"No," replied Salt.

"Oh, well, no good trying my rotten powers description. Must go with me some night and see. She hangs by her toes to a slack wire eighty-five feet above the stage and sings:

'Things are strangely upside down, dear boys.

Nowadays.'

No getting away from it, she is positively the most crystallised damson that ever stepped out of lace-edged box. No fear monotony in home with girl like that. The very thought of it----! Well, come out and have drink, Salt?"

"Thanks, no," replied Salt. "I've quite got out of the habit."

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Freddy, aghast. "You better try some of those newspaper things that Johnnies with funny addresses and members of the Greek Royal Family write up to say have done them no end. I say, Salt, I suppose there is spare office in this palatial suite that I could have if I grappled with the gilded effort?"

"I really don't know that there is." He had not the most shadowy faith in the Honourable Freddy's perseverance, even in intention, for a week.

To expect any real work from him was out of the question. "We are rather overcrowded here as it is."

"If I were you, Salt, I should insist upon the old man removing better premises somewhere. Place seems absolutely congealed with underlings.

Just listen to that in next room: it's like hive of gilded bees. What is it?"

"Simply routine work going on," said Salt half-impatiently. "Sorry I can't spare the time to come out with you."

"Oh, that's all right-angled," said Freddy, taking the hint and rising.

"Sorry. Pramp, pramp. You think I shall find Sir John here Friday if I look in?"

"Yes, here; but desperately busy."

"Er, thanks," drawled Freddy, with just a suggestion of vice. "Perhaps my uncle will be able to spare me five minutes when he has done with you."

He drifted languidly through the door and sauntered down the pa.s.sage. At the door of the room where the monotonous voice rose and fell in the ceaseless repet.i.tion of short sentences, he paused to light a cigarette.

For perhaps a full minute he remained quite motionless, the cigarette between his lips, the match pressed ready against the corrugations of the jewelled box he held.

"Listretton, Fergus, 572 Upper Holloway Road, N.