“Don’t worry any. It isn’t worth it. Now, see here, Jane, there’s something we want to know about. There was a man aboard that boat with some mighty important papers on him, and the big guns in this country have got a notion that he passed on the goods to you. Is that so?”
The girl hesitated, her glance shifting to the other two. Julius understood.
“ Mr. Beresford is commissioned by the British government to get those papers back. Sir James Peel Edgerton is an English Member of Parliament, and might be a big gun in the Cabinet if he liked. It’s owing to him that we’ve ferreted you out at last. So you can go right ahead and tell us the whole story. Did Danvers give you the papers?”
“Yes. He said they’d have a better chance with me, because they would save the women and children first.”
“Just as we thought,” said Sir James.
“He said they were very important—that they might make all the difference to the Allies. But, if it’s all so long ago, and the war’s over, what does it matter now?”
“I guess history repeats itself, Jane. First there was a great hue and cry over those papers, then it all died down, and now the whole caboodle’s started all over again—for rather different reasons. Then you can hand them over to us right away?”
“But I can’t.”
“What?”
“I haven’t got them.”
“You—haven’t—got them?” Julius punctuated the words with little pauses.