two men, quiet geniuses, who largely controlled it.
If for nothing else than contrast I wanted to see
those rooms and those men, for through their
inventions England has been pretty completely
purged of the spy terror and Germany has been
given a spy terror of its own. The thing was
arranged. I walked from the smug respectability
of the Embankment into the amazing somnolence
of Scotland Yard. In the office of a church
society one would have found more movement,
more irritability, more anxiety. Except for the
bobby who strolled away with my card no one was
visible.
The man I had come to see sat behind a littered desk. He wore a light alpaca jacket and his necktie was a trifle awry. He had the pleasantest and the sharpest eyes imaginable, which, however, showed something of that strain I was to notice so generally in men's eyes at the front. It was as if, while risking nothing physical himself, he shared the deadly anxiety of his agents at work far from the safety and the quiet of this place. His squarely-cut and powerful features suggested a secretive mind. That at least was in keeping with one's idea of Scotland Yard. The necessity for it, he let me know, was infinitely graver than ever before in the history of British intelligence.
As I talked with the man with the pleasant,
