“I wanted to warn you, so’s you could be ready when Fleming jumped in,” Barry continued.

“No; I’m much obliged, Barry,” was Byng’s reply, in a voice where trouble was well marked, however.  “Wait a minute,” he continued, as his visitor prepared to leave.  “Go into the other room”—­he pointed.  “Glue your ear to the door first, then to the wall, and tell me if you can hear anything—­any word I say.”

Barry did as he was bidden.  Presently Byng spoke in a tone rather louder than in ordinary conversation to an imaginary interlocutor for some minutes.  Then Barry Whalen came back into the room.

“Well?” Byng asked.  “Heard anything?”

“Not a word—­scarcely a murmur.”

“Quite so.  The walls are thick, and those big mahogany doors fit like a glove.  Nothing could leak through.  Let’s try the other door, leading into the hall.”  They went over to it.  “You see, here’s an inside baize-door as well.  There’s not room for a person to stand between the two.  I’ll go out now, and you stay.  Talk fairly loud.”

The test produced the same result.

“Maybe I talk in my sleep,” remarked Byng, with a troubled, ironical laugh.

Suddenly there shot into Barry Whalen’s mind a thought which startled him, which brought the colour to his face with a rush.  For years he had suspected Krool, had considered him a danger.  For years he had regarded Byng as culpable, for keeping as his servant one whom the Partners all believed to be a spy; but now another, a terrible thought came to him, too terrible to put into words—­even in his own mind.

There were two other people besides Krool who were very close to Byng.  There was Mrs. Byng for one; there was also Adrian Fellowes, who had been for a long time a kind of handy-man of the great house, doing the hundred things which only a private secretary, who was also a kind of master-of-ceremonies and lord-in-waiting, as it were, could do.  Yes, there was Adrian Fellowes, the private secretary; and there was Mrs. Byng, who knew so much of what her husband knew!  And the private secretary and the wife necessarily saw much of each other.  What came to Barry’s mind now stunned him, and he mumbled out some words of good-bye with an almost hang-dog look to his face; for he had a chivalrous heart and mind, and he was not prone to be malicious.

“We’ll meet at eight, then?” said Byng, taking out his watch.  “It’s a quarter past seven now.  Don’t fuss, Barry.  We’ll nose out the spy, whoever he is, or wherever to be found.  But we won’t find him here, I think—­not here, my friend.”

Suddenly Barry Whalen turned at the door.  “Oh, let’s go back to the veld and the Rand!” he burst out, passionately.  “This is no place for us, Byng—­not for either of us.  You are getting flabby, and I’m spoiling my temper and my manners.  Let’s get out of this infernal jack-pot.  Let’s go where we’ll be in the thick of the broiling when it comes.  You’ve got a political head, and you’ve done more than any one else could do to put things right and keep them right; but it’s no good.  Nothing’ll be got except where the red runs.  And the red will run, in spite of all Jo or Milner or you can do.  And when it comes, you and I will be sick if we’re not there—­yes, even you with your millions, Byng.”