Chapter One - THE MAN OF THE MOMENT

"That man knows too much!"

"Do you really think he overheard?"

"He may not have done. But we must take no risks, my dear fellow. Remember we are at war! With people who know too much there's but one way--dismissal," declared Lewin Rodwell, the tall, well-groomed middle-aged man, in morning-coat and grey trousers, who stood in the panelled boardroom with his chairman, Sir Boyle Huntley, the other directors having left after the weekly meeting of the board.

"He might talk--eh?" Sir Boyle remarked in a low, apprehensive tone.

"He would probably fear the law of libel," said Lewin Rodwell, fair-haired, sleek, rather refined, who, at the moment, was one of the most popular and patriotic figures in London--a man whose praises were sung constantly in the halfpenny press, and who numbered peers, Cabinet Ministers and diplomats among his friends.

His companion, ten years his senior, was of a different type--a somewhat uncouth man, with a reddish, bloated face, dark hair tinged with grey, deep-set crafty eyes, and a voice which betrayed his cockney birth and breeding, which even his Birthday baronetcy could not disguise.

Both men, of humble origin, had won considerable fortune in the City and had worked together on the boards of many companies more or less prosperous. They were "keen business men"--which, in these days, seems to be the accepted description of those who are not above descending to sharp practices--and indeed, if the truth be told, had been guilty of certain financial juggling which would have looked very ugly against them if placed before a court of law.

Yet what they had done had been done within the law, and their hands were, consequently, just as clean as those of hundreds of other company-directors in the City of London.

Rodwell, with his back to the fire--for it was a cold, dark November afternoon in the year 1914--slowly lit a good cigar which he took from his case, while Sir Boyle fidgeted uneasily with some papers at the table.

"How shall you get rid of that unnecessary fellow?" he asked his friend at last. "If he were dismissed now, he'd at once guess the reason, and might become our enemy."

"Enemy! Bosh!" laughed Lewin Rodwell, scornfully. "There's no fear of that, my dear chap. 

  P 1/134 next