Lord Wisbeach turned to his hostess. The vacuous expression had
dropped from his face like a mask. A pair of keen and intelligent
eyes met Mrs. Pett's.
"Mrs. Pett, may I speak to you seriously?"
Mrs. Pett's surprise at the alteration in the man prevented her
from replying. Much as she liked Lord Wisbeach, she had never
given him credit for brains, and it was a man with brains and
keen ones who was looking at her now. She nodded.
"If your nephew has really succeeded in his experiments, you
should be awfully careful. That stuff ought not to lie about in
his laboratory, though no doubt he has hidden it as carefully as
possible. It ought to be in a safe somewhere. In that safe in
your library. News of this kind moves like lightning. At this
very moment, there may be people watching for a chance of getting
at the stuff."
Every nerve in Mrs. Pett's body, every cell of a brain which had
for years been absorbing and giving out sensational fiction,
quivered irrepressibly at these words, spoken in a low, tense
voice which gave them additional emphasis. Never had she
misjudged a man as she had misjudged Lord Wisbeach.
"Spies?" she quavered.
"They wouldn't call themselves that," said Lord Wisbeach. "Secret
Service agents. Every country has its men whose only duty it is
to handle this sort of work."
"They would try to steal Willie's--?" Mrs. Pett's voice failed.
"They would not look on it as stealing.
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