"Scoundrel," muttered the soldier angrily.
"Or saint," added James Greyman. "He will be that when he comes to believe his own story of having burned the sack rather than use it. That won't be long. Then he will be much more dangerous. However, if there is no place vacant for me, sir----"
"If you would not mind waiting a minute----" began the military magnate, with a hasty look at the Political.
James Greyman bowed, and retired discreetly to the window. It looked out upon just such another garden as Kate Erlton's, and the remembrance provoked the cynical question as to what the devil he was doing in that galley. Racing was a far safer way of making money than acting as a spy; to no purpose possibly, at least so far as his own chance was concerned.
Yet five minutes after, when the Political was writing him out a safe conduct in the event of his ever getting into difficulties with the authorities, he interrupted the scratching of the pen to say, suddenly:
"If you would make it out in my own name, sir, I should prefer it. James Sholto Douglas, late of the ----th Regiment."
"Hm!" said the military magnate thoughtfully when the new employee in the Secret Intelligence Department left the room. "So that is Jim Douglas, is it? I thought he was a service man by the set of his shoulders. Jim Douglas. I remember his case when I was in the A.-G.'s office."
"What was it?" asked the civilian curiously.
"Oh, a woman, of course. I forget the details, she was the wife of his major, a drunken beast. There was something about a blow, and she didn't back him up; saved her reputation, you understand. But he was an uncommonly smart officer, I know that."