ed proposition,
but it's him or the world that's got to break. But before he quits this
earth we're bound to get wise about some of his plans, and that means
that we can't just shoot a pistol at his face. Also we've got to find
him first. We reckon he's in Switzerland, but that is a state with
quite a lot of diversified scenery to lose a man in ... Still I guess
we'll find him. But it's the kind of business to plan out as carefully
as a battle. I'm going back to Berne on my old stunt to boss the show,
and I'm giving the orders. You're an obedient child, Dick, so I don't
reckon on any trouble that way.'

Then Blenkiron did an ominous thing. He pulled up a little table and
started to lay out Patience cards. Since his duodenum was cured he
seemed to have dropped that habit, and from his resuming it I gathered
that his mind was uneasy. I can see that scene as if it were
yesterday--the French colonel in an armchair smoking a cigarette in a
long amber holder, and Blenkiron sitting primly on the edge of a yellow
silk ottoman, dealing his cards and looking guiltily towards me.

'You'll have Peter for company,' he said. 'Peter's a sad man, but he
has a great heart, and he's been mighty useful to me already. They're
going to move him to England very soon. The authorities are afraid of
him, for he's apt to talk wild, his health having made him peevish
about the British. But there's a deal of red-tape in the world, and the
orders for his repatriation are slow in coming.' The speaker winked
very slowly and deliberately with his left eye.

I asked if I was to be with Peter, much cheered at the prospect.

'Why, yes. You and Peter are the collateral in the deal. But the big
game's not with you.'

I had a presentiment of something coming, something anxious and
unpleasant.

'Is Mary in it?' I asked.

He nodded and seemed to pull himself together for an explanation.

'See here, Dick. Our main job is to get Ivery back to Allied soil where
we can handle him. And there's just the one magnet that can fetch him
back. You aren't going to deny that.'

I felt my face getting very red, and that ugly hammer began beating in
my forehead. Two grave, patient eyes met my glare.

'I'm damned if I'll allow it!' I cried. 'I've some right to a say in
the thing. I won't have Mary made a decoy. It's too infernally
degrading.'

'It isn't pretty, but war isn't pretty, and nothing we do is pretty.
I'd have blushed like a rose when I was young and