“Your lunatic paper has turned your brain, my son,” Garth said.

“Well, let's be getting on,” Macdermott impatiently urged. “Which way did your plotters take, Beechtree? We may as well be getting after them, anyhow.”

“I don't know. I've lost them. I didn't follow at once, you see; I waited, thinking they would come out presently. When they didn't, I came down too. But by that time they'd got a long start. And, as there are other exits, they may have got out anywhere.”

“Well, let's come along and look. We'll each take a different passage; we'll explore every avenue, like Cabinet Ministers. I'll go straight ahead; one of you two take that right-hand road, and the other the next turning, whenever it comes. We'll each get out where and how we can. Come on.”

Garth turned up to the right. Henry went on with Macdermott for some way, till another turning branched off, running left.

“Ah, there's yours,” said the Ulster delegate. “I shall keep straight on, whatever alluring avenues open on either side to tempt me. To-morrow (if we get out of this) we'll bring a gang of police down and do the thing thoroughly. Good luck, Beechtree. Don't scrag honest civil servants or good clergymen on sight. And don't let old Kratzky scrag you. Politically he's on the right side (that's why he'd want to scrag you, and quite right, too), but personally he's what you might call a trifle unprincipled, and that's why he'd do it as soon as look at you.”


[38]