"You got into the clutches of the most infernal gang of swine, and we've been trying to get you out again." He looked at him quietly. "Do you think you can remember enough to tell us what happened at the beginning? Take your time," he urged. "There's no hurry."
The others drew nearer eagerly, and the millionaire passed his hand dazedly over his forehead.
"I was stopping at the Carlton," he began, "with Granger, my secretary. I sent him over to Belfast on a shipping deal and—" He paused and looked round the group. "Where is Granger?" he asked.
"Mr. Granger was murdered in Belfast, Mr. Potts," said Drummond quietly, "by a member of the gang that kidnapped you."
"Murdered! Jimmy Granger murdered!" He almost cried in his weakness. "What did the swine want to murder him for?"
"Because they wanted you alone," explained Hugh. "Private secretaries ask awkward questions."
After a while the millionaire recovered his composure, and with many breaks, and pauses the slow, disjointed story continued.
"Lakington! That was the name of the man I met at the Carlton. And then there was another … Peter … Peterson. That's it. We all dined together, I remember, and it was after dinner, in my private sitting-room, that Peterson put up his proposition to me…. It was a suggestion that he thought would appeal to me as a business man. He said—what was it?—that he could produce a gigantic syndicalist strike in England—revolution, in fact;
