"Get on to the track and find some proof," Aaron Rodd suggested. "There isn't any one can stop you then from behaving in a commonsense manner."
"And lose our promotion and get snubbed for our pains," the detective remarked. "I don't care much about the job, Mr. Rodd, thanking you all the same. I don't mind telling you that Mrs. Abrahams was on the list of suspected persons kept here, and has been crossed off at the special instructions of a highly-placed personage. It isn't my business to interfere with her or her doings."
The two visitors withdrew, a little perplexed. The poet, however, was undaunted.
"My friend," he said, "this was to be my adventure and I tell you I've a trump card left yet. Come along."
They paid one more call at a large and imposing establishment no great distance away. After a wait of nearly an hour, an orderly came in.
"The Chief will see you and your friend, Mr. Cresswell," he announced. "Be as quick as you can, please."
The poet, who loved words, showed that he knew how to dispense with them. He shook hands with the somewhat grizzled-looking, handsome soldier who welcomed them.
"This is my friend Mr. Rodd, a solicitor," he said. "Sir Horace, I have put my hand by accident upon a nest of conspiracy within a quarter of a mile from here. The Home Office or the police won't touch it because the woman chiefly concerned is persona grata with Cabinet Ministers. Will you take it on?"
"I will," Sir Horace promised, "if there's anything in it. Get on with your information."
"The woman's name is Abrahams, and she has a flat in the Northumberland Court," the poet continued. "I followed a young man there the other afternoon, who is born a German but calls himself an American. Mrs. Abrahams was entertaining a small party of friends, every one of whom is of German sympathies, although two are employed as censors by His Majesty's Government. The young man I followed is drawing money from her nearly every week, and spends most of his spare time motoring round London with one of the new naval air defence commanders."