CHAPTER XXXIV
THE PHOTO-PLAY
DICK’S face went white.
“How do you know this?”
“Well, there’s a photograph coming along; it will be in London this afternoon; but I needn’t see that. This man under sentence has three vaccination marks on the right forearm.”
There was a dead silence.
“I wondered why you turned the talk to vaccination,” said Dick quietly. “I ought to have known there was something in it. What can we do?”
“I’ll tell you what you can’t do,” said Elk. “You can’t let that girl know. For good and sufficient reasons, Ray Bennett has decided not to reveal his identity, and he must pass out. You’re going to have a rotten afternoon, Captain Gordon,” said Elk gently, “and I’d rather be me than you. But you’ve got to keep up your light-hearted chatter, or that young woman is going to guess that something is wrong.”
“My God! How dreadful!” said Dick in a low voice.
“Yes, it is,” admitted Elk, “and we can do nothing. We’ve got to accept it as a fact that he’s guilty. If you thought any other way, it would drive you mad. And even if he was as innocent as you or I, what chance have we of getting an inquiry or stopping the sentence being carried into execution?”