“It looks like an international plot,” he said emphatically. “The anti-Fascists are bad enough, but if the Bolsheviks are mixed in it—”
“That might be troublesome for you, eh?” quizzed Blaine Glover, the famous steamship man.
“Yes,” admitted Hotchkiss. “I have been successful in prohibiting the importation of lumber from Russia. That cheap Bolshevik timber was a menace. We’ve stopped a lot of it now. They don’t like it in Moscow.”
“I don’t think this can go far,” said Blaine Glover optimistically. “There’s nothing to be gained by attacking individuals.”
“Look at it from Farmington’s viewpoint,” Hotchkiss put in sourly.
“Well, Farmington’s dead.”
“Yes. That’s just the trouble. Who will be next?”
The words brought nods of understanding from other members of the group.
“No one is safe,” observed Stephen Baum, the chain-store director. “If this crazy man sets out to kill, they cannot stop him. How was Farmington murdered?”
“Poisoned,” declared Glover. “They discovered that right away. I read the report of the toxicologist in tonight’s Sphere—”