band of amateurs that has done remarkably fine work for my Department, work that nobody else could have done. If they’ve chosen rather melodramatic trappings, well, why shouldn’t they? They’ve been willing to face real danger—danger of the very worst kind—and they’ve done it for these reasons: love of danger for its own sake—which to my mind is a very healthy sign in these Safety First days—and an honest wish to serve their country.
“And now, Lady Eileen, I’m going to introduce you. First of all, there’s Mr. Mosgorovsky, whom you already know in a manner of speaking. As you’re aware, he runs the club and he runs a host of other things too. He’s our most valuable Secret Anti-Bolshevist Agent in England. No. 5 is Count Andras of the Hungarian Embassy, a very near and dear friend of the late Mr. Gerald Wade. No. 4 is Mr. Hayward Phelps, an American journalist, whose British sympathies are very keen and whose aptitude for scenting ‘news’ is remarkable. No. 3—”
He stopped, smiling, and Bundle stared dumbfounded into the sheepish, grinning face of Bill Eversleigh.
“ No. 2,” went on Battle in a graver voice, “can only show an empty place. It is the place belonging to Mr. Ronald Devereux, a very gallant young gentleman who died for his country if any man ever did. No. 1—well, No. 1 was Mr. Gerald Wade, another very gallant gentleman who died in the same way. His place was taken—not without some grave misgivings on my part—by a lady—a lady who has proved her fitness to have it and who has been a great help to us.”
The last to do so, No. 1 removed her mask, and Bundle looked without surprise into the beautiful, dark face of Countess Radzky.
“I might have known,” said Bundle resentfully, “that you were too completely the beautiful foreign adventuress to be anything of the kind really.”