For the love of your country
and her honour, use your influence with these people. Stop those
telegrams. Work for delay at any cost. There's something
inexplicable, sinister, about the whole business. Freistner may
be an honest man, but I'll swear that he hasn't the influence or
the position that these people have been led to believe. And as
for Nicholas Fenn--"
The Prime Minister paused. Julian waited anxiously.
"It is my belief," the former concluded deliberately, "that thirty
seconds in the courtyard of the Tower, with his back to the light,
would about meet his case."
They parted at the door, and Julian returned to his seat, uneasy
and perplexed. Around the Council table voices were raised in
anger. Fenn, who was sitting moodily with folded arms, his chair
drawn a little back from the table, scowled at him as he took his
place. Furley, who had been whispering to the Bishop, turned
towards Julian.
"It seems," he announced, "that the originals of most of
Freistner's communications have been destroyed."
"And why not?" Fenn demanded passionately. "Why should I keep
letters which would lay a rope around my neck any day they were
found? You all know as well as I do that we've been expecting the
police to raid the place ever since we took it."
"I am a late comer," Julian observed, "but surely some of you
others have seen the original communications?"
Thomas Evans spoke up from the other end of the table,--a small,
sturdily built man, a great power in South Wales.
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