“He would have been hanged anyway,” put in Tommy consolingly.

Latimer smiled.  “I didn’t mean to suggest that it was likely to keep me awake at night.  I was only thinking that we might perhaps have got some useful information out of him.”

“It seems to me,” I said gratefully, “that we did.”

Through the interminable suburbs and slums of South-East London we steamed slowly into London Bridge Station and drew up at the platform.  There was a taxi waiting almost opposite our carriage, and promptly securing the driver Latimer instructed him to take us “as quickly as possible” to No. 10 Downing Street.

The man carried out his order with almost alarming literalness, but Providence watched over us and we reached the Foreign Office without disaster.  Favoured with a respectful salute from the liveried porter on duty, Latimer led the way into the hall.

We followed him down a short narrow passage to another corridor, where he unlocked and opened a door on the left, ushering us into a small room comfortably fitted up as an office.

“This is my own private den,” he said; “so no one will disturb you.  I will go and see if Casement has come.  If so, he is probably upstairs with Lammersfield.  I will give them my report, and then no doubt they will want to see you.  You won’t have to wait very long.”

He nodded pleasantly and left the room, closing the door after him.  For all his quiet, almost lethargic manner, it was curious what an atmosphere of swiftness and decision he seemed to carry about with him.

I turned to Tommy.

“Where’s Joyce?” I asked.

“She’s at the flat,” he announced.  “She said she would wait there until she heard from us.  I saw her last night, you know.  I was having supper at Hatchett’s with Latimer when she turned up with your letter.  She’d come on from his rooms.”

“There are many women,” I said softly, “but there is only one Joyce.”

Tommy chuckled.  “That’s what Latimer thinks.  After she left us—­I was staying the night with him in Jermyn Street and we’d all three gone back there to talk it over—­he said to me in that funny drawling way of his:  ’You know, Morrison, that girl will be wasted, even on Lyndon.  She ought to be in the Secret Service.’”

I laughed.  “I’m grateful to the Secret Service,” I said, “but there are limits even to gratitude.”

For perhaps three-quarters of an hour we remained undisturbed, while Latimer was presumably presenting his report to the authorities.  Every now and then we heard footsteps pass down the corridor, and on one occasion an electric bell went off with a sudden vicious energy that I should never have expected in a Government office.  The time passed quickly, for we had plenty to talk about; indeed, our only objection to waiting was the fact that we were both beginning to get infernally hungry, and it seemed likely to be some time yet before we should be able to get anything to eat.