"I haven't had the opportunity of congratulating you upon becoming one of our hereditary legislators, Lord Dorminster, since you took your seat in the House of Lords," he said. "Pray let me do so now. I hope that we may count upon your support."
"My support, sir," Nigel replied, "will be given to any Party which will take the urgent necessary steps to protect this country against a great danger."
"God bless my soul!" the Prime Minister exclaimed. "Another of you!"
"I can only guess who my predecessors were," Nigel continued, smiling, "but I will frankly confess that the object of my visit is to beg you to reëstablish our secret service in Germany, Russia and China."
"Nothing," the other declared, "would induce me to do anything of the sort."
"Are you aware," Nigel enquired, "that there is a considerable foreign secret service at work in this country at the present moment?"
"I am not aware of it, and I don't believe it," was the blunt retort.
"I have absolute proof," Nigel insisted. "Not only that, but two ex-secret service men whom my uncle sent out to Germany and Russia on his own account were murdered there as soon as they began to get on the track of certain things which had been kept secret. A report from one of these men got through and was stolen from my uncle's library in Belgrave Square on the day he was murdered. You will remember that I placed all these facts before you on the occasion of a previous visit."
Mervin Brown nodded.
"Anything else?" he asked patiently.