He advanced to the table
with a little familiar swagger.
"Mr. Fenn," the Bishop said, "we have been awaiting your arrival
anxiously. Tell us, please, where we can find Mr. Julian Orden."
Fenn gave vent to a half-choked, ironical laugh.
"If you'd asked me an hour ago," he said, "I should have told you
to try Iris Villa, Acacia Road, Hampstead. I have just come from
there."
"You saw him?" the Bishop enquired.
"That's just what I did not," Fenn replied.
"Why not?" Catherine demanded.
"Because he wasn't there hasn't been since three o'clock this
afternoon."
"You've moved him?" Furley asked eagerly.
"He's moved himself," was the grim reply. "He's escaped."
During the brief, spellbound silence which followed his
announcement, Fenn advanced slowly into the room. It chanced that
during their informal discussion, the chair at the head of the
table had been left unoccupied. The newcomer hesitated for a
single second, then removed his hat, laid it on the floor by his
side, and sank into the vacant seat. He glanced somewhat
defiantly towards Catherine. He seemed to know quite well from
whence the challenge of his words would come.
"You tell us," Catherine said, mastering her emotion with an
effort, "that Julian Orden, whom we now know to be `Paul Fiske',
has escaped. Just what do you mean?"
"I can scarcely reduce my statement to plainer words," Fenn
replied, "but I will try. The danger in which we stood through
the miscarriage of that packet was appreciated by every one of the
Council.
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