n voice. As mild, you'd say, as curds and cream.'

Blenkiron got out of his chair and stood above me. 'I tell you, Dick,
that man makes my spine cold. He hasn't a drop of good red blood in
him. The dirtiest apache is a Christian gentleman compared to Moxon
Ivery. He's as cruel as a snake and as deep as hell. But, by God, he's
got a brain below his hat. He's hooked and we're playing him, but Lord
knows if he'll ever be landed!'

'Why on earth don't you put him away?' I asked.

'We haven't the proof--legal proof, I mean; though there's buckets of
the other kind. I could put up a morally certain case, but he'd beat me
in a court of law. And half a hundred sheep would get up in Parliament
and bleat about persecution. He has a graft with every collection of
cranks in England, and with all the geese that cackle about the liberty
of the individual when the Boche is ranging about to enslave the world.
No, sir, that's too dangerous a game! Besides, I've a better in hand,
Moxon Ivery is the best-accredited member of this State. His _dossier_
is the completest thing outside the Recording Angel's little note-book.
We've taken up his references in every corner of the globe and they're
all as right as Morgan's balance sheet. From these it appears he's been
a high-toned citizen ever since he was in short-clothes. He was raised
in Norfolk, and there are people living who remember his father. He was
educated at Melton School and his name's in the register. He was in
business in Valparaiso, and there's enough evidence to write three
volumes of his innocent life there. Then he came home with a modest
competence two years before the war, and has been in the public eye
ever since. He was Liberal candidate for a London constitooency and he
has decorated the board of every institootion formed for the
amelioration of mankind. He's got enough alibis to choke a boa
constrictor, and they're water-tight and copper-bottomed, and they're
mostly damned lies ... But you can't beat him at that stunt. The man's
the superbest actor that ever walked the earth. You can see it in his
face. It isn't a face, it's a mask. He could make himself look like
Shakespeare or Julius Caesar or Billy Sunday or Brigadier-General
Richard Hannay if he wanted to. He hasn't got any personality
either--he's got fifty, and there's no one he could call his own. I
reckon when the devil gets the handling of him at last he'll have to
put sand on his claws to keep him from slippi