"Not at all, Boris Platoff," replied Mindiggle coolly. "On the contrary, I have hopes that we shall be relieved of a considerable amount of bother and danger. The diamonds will be in Petrograd before the great day. That young man will consent to my terms. It's wonderful what a hold one has over an Englishman who owns a favourite dog. Inform the police—bah! He would not dare risk the ridicule his action would bring upon him. Those diamonds will go in the submarine, you mark my words."
"Let us hope so," rejoined Platoff. "Then, either they will reach Comrade Klostivitch or else it will be an end to R19. It depends largely on the temperature in the Baltic, eh?"
Both men laughed softly.
"Supposing," continued the Russian—"Supposing—and we must consider possibilities—this English officer takes the diamonds and then hands them over to the authorities?"
"I'll have to take the risk of being convicted as a smuggler, comrade," replied Mindiggle.
"But if they are subjected to a test?"
"They will discover nothing. I defy the efforts of the world's laboratories to analyse the stuff," declared Mindiggle. "Acid, heat —nothing will avail."
"Except cold," added Boris Platoff.
"Then it will be what the ancient Egyptians call Nirvana," said the other grimly.
Boris Platoff was a Leninist, a member of the ultra-extremist party in Russia. Having, under German influence, taken a prominent part in wrecking the Russian Empire as a fighting-machine, he was doing his best to supplant the Kerensky regime by one of red-hot anarchy. While on a mission to the Russian Anarchist colony in London he had been given an introduction to a member of the World's Workers—a revolutionary society the object of which was the social democracy of every nation under the sun. This member's name was simply given as Comrade Ivan, known outside the brotherhood as Mr. John Mindiggle.