openly, I have even abjured to some extent my incognito. Yet I have not received even a warning letter. I am left absolutely undisturbed.”
Felix looked at him thoughtfully.
“And what do you deduce from this?” he asked.
“I do not like it,” Mr. Sabin answered drily.
“After all,” Felix remarked, “it is to some extent natural. The very openness of your life here makes interference with you more difficult, and as to warning letters—well, you have proved the uselessness of them.”
“Perhaps,” Mr. Sabin answered. “At the same time, if I were a superstitious person I should consider this inaction ominous.”
“You must take account also,” Felix said, “of the difference in the countries. In England the police system, if not the most infallible in the world, is certainly the most incorruptible. There was never a country in which security of person and life was so keenly watched over as here. In America, up to a certain point, a man is expected to look after himself. The same feeling does not prevail here.”
Mr. Sabin assented.
“And therefore,” he remarked, “for the purposes of your friends I should consider this a difficult and unpromising country in which to work.”
“Other countries, other methods!” Felix remarked laconically.
“Exactly! It is the new methods which I am anxious to discover,” Mr. Sabin said. “No glimmering of them as yet has been vouchsafed to me. Yet I believe that I am right in assuming that for the moment London is the headquarters of your friends, and that Lucille is here?”
“If that is meant for a question,” Felix said, “I may not answer it.”
Mr. Sabin nodded.
“Yet,” he suggested, “your visit has an object. To discover my plans perhaps! You are welcome to them.”
Felix thoughtfully knocked the ashes off his cigarette.
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