If
any one ever writes my political biography, they will probably decide
that the parting with you was the greatest of my blunders."
He rose to his feet, swinging the key upon his finger.
"One more word, Tallente," he added. "I want to warn you that so far as
your further progress is concerned, there is a snake in the grass
somewhere. The manuscript of which Williams spoke to you, and which
would of course damn you forever with any party which depended for its
existence even indirectly upon the trades unions, was offered to me,
without any hint at financial return, on the sole condition that I
guaranteed its public production. It is perfectly obvious, therefore,
that there is some one stirring who means harm. I speak to you now only
as a friend and as a well-wisher. Did I understand Williams to say that
the document was stolen from your study at Martinhoe?"
"It was stolen," Tallente replied, "by my secretary, Anthony Palliser,
who disappeared with it one night in August."
"'Disappeared' seems rather a vague term," Horlock remarked.
"A trifle melodramatic, I admit," Tallente assented.
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