“You are both,” he admitted gravely. “Thank you very much for telling me this, Geraldine.”
“You still have nothing to say to me?” she asked, looking him in the face.
“Nothing,” he replied.
She nodded, slipped in her clutch and drove off. Surgeon-Major Thomson entered the War Office and made his way up many stairs and along many wide corridors to a large room on the top floor of the building. Two men were seated at desks, writing. He passed them by with a little greeting and entered an inner apartment. A pile of letters stood upon his desk. He examined them one by one, destroyed some, made pencil remarks upon others. Presently there was a tap at the door and Ambrose entered.
“Chief’s compliments and he would be glad if you would step round to his room at once, sir,” he announced.
Thomson locked his desk, made his way to the further end of the building and was admitted through a door by which a sentry was standing, to an anteroom in which a dozen people were waiting. His guide passed him through to an inner apartment, where a man was seated alone. He glanced up at Thomson’s entrance.
“Good morning, Thomson!” he said brusquely. “Sit down, please. Leave the room, Dawkes, and close the door. Thanks! Thomson, what about this request of yours?”
“I felt bound to bring the matter before you, sir,” Thomson replied. “I made my application to the censor and you know the result.”
The Chief swung round in his chair.
“Look here,” he said, “the censor’s department has instructions to afford you every possible assistance in any researches you make. There are just twenty-four names in the United Kingdom which have been admitted to the privileges of free correspondence. The censor has no right to touch any letters addressed to them. Sir Alfred Anselman is upon that list.”