Baggin nodded, and the man rose and made his way to the curtained recess where the switches were.
"No, no, no!" said Baggin quickly—for he suddenly realised that there was something hidden by the curtain, a sinister figure of a man in convict shirt, fingering the edge of a brand-new knife. So Baggin pictured him.
The masked man halted in surprise.
"No, no," repeated Baggin, and beckoned him back. "For what I have to say I need no light; you interrupt me, brother."
With a muttered apology the man resumed his seat.
"I have said," continued Baggin, "that the time has come when we must seriously consider the advisability of dispersing."
A murmur of assent met these words.
"This organisation of ours has grown and grown until it has become unwieldy," he went on. "We are all business men, so there is no need for me to enlarge upon the danger that attends the house that undertakes responsibilities which it cannot personally attend to.
"We have completed a most wonderful organisation. We have employed all the ingenuities of modern science to further our plans. We have agents in every part of Europe, in India, Egypt, and America. So long as these agents have been ignorant of the identity and location of their employers, we were safe. To ensure this, we have worked through Count Poltavo, a gentleman who came to us some time ago—under peculiar conditions.
"We have employed, too, and gratefully employed, Catherine Dominguez, a charming lady, as to whose future you need have no fear. Some time ago, as you all know, we established wireless stations in the great capitals, as being the safest method by which our instructions might be transmitted without revealing to our agents the origin of these commands. A code was drawn up, certain arrangements of letters and words, and this code was deciphered and our secret revealed through the ingenuity of one man. We were prepared to meet him on a business basis. We communicated with him by wireless, and agreed to pay a sum not only to himself, but to two others, if he kept our secret and agreed to make no written record of their discovery. They promised, but their promise was broken, and it was necessary to employ other methods.