“Papers?” he repeated vaguely.
“Yesterday. The loss of the Alsace. You remember I told you that Du Chainat, as he called himself, was on board.”
“Oh, that!” Storm laughed loudly, so loudly that Millard stared at him in surprise. “Odd thing, wasn’t it? Fancy how the people he swindled must have felt when they read that he had escaped their clutches!”
Millard looked shocked.
“Terrible thing, I call it,” he said slowly. “It makes a chap believe that there is such a thing as retributive justice, after all.”
“Bosh!” Storm waved his hand in contempt. “Where is the justice in the loss of six or seven hundred lives just to drown one rat of a swindler and sink all his loot with him? It was chance, that’s all. I tell you, Millard, if a chap is clever enough he can get away with anything these days.”
“There isn’t any such clever animal!” Millard shook his head. “I tell you, after what I learned at Headquarters when I went to explain about my acquaintance with Du Chainat, I wouldn’t like to pull anything in this town and hope to get away with it. We who live a normal, well-ordered, conventional existence haven’t the least conception of their organization down there; it is perfect!”
Storm shrugged skeptically.
“If Du Chainat had been careful enough of the details of his getaway, I’ll lay you a wager that they would never have discovered he was on board the Alsace. No organization can be flawless; it is the individual, one-man system that is perfect, if that man has the mentality and courage and patience. Given such a man, I’d pit him against the whole Department any day.”
“You wouldn’t if you knew the inner workings of that department, their tremendous ramifications——” Millard broke off and added eagerly: “I say, would you care to run over to Headquarters with me sometime? I’ll introduce you to a chap there who will show you all over the shop, and you’ll be dumbfounded, as I was, at the thoroughness of their methods of investigation. It’s an eye-opener, Storm! Of course, if you’re not interested——”