The glass flask still stuck to one charred hand, but it was no longer hot. And Recklow rolled the unspeakable thing into the white shroud and pushed it into the swamp.
An evil ooze took it, slowly sucked it under and engulfed it. A few stinking bubbles broke.
Recklow went back to the little glade among the pines.
A young girl lay sobbing convulsively in her husband’s arms, asking God’s pardon and his for the justice she had done upon an enemy of all mankind.
CHAPTER X
AT THE RITZ
When Victor Cleves telegraphed from St. Augustine to Washington that he and his wife were on their way North, and that they desired to see John Recklow as soon as they arrived, John Recklow remarked that he knew of no place as private as a public one. And he came on to New York and established himself at the Ritz, rather regally.
To dine with him that evening were two volunteer agents of the United States Secret Service, ZB-303, otherwise James Benton, a fashionable architect; and XYL-371, Alexander Selden, sometime junior partner in the house of Milwin, Selden & Co.
A single lamp was burning in the white-and-rose rococo room. Under its veiled glow these three men sat conversing in guarded voices over coffee and cigars, awaiting the advent of 53-6-26, otherwise Victor Cleves, recently Professor of Ornithology at Cambridge; and his young wife, Tressa, known officially as V-69.