Henry left the Salle de la Reformation and went out into the town to look for further light on the mystery. How proud he would be if he should collect more information about it than the other journalists! Than Jefferson, for instance, who was always ahead in these things, interviewing statesmen, getting statements made to him.... No one made statements to Henry; he never liked to ask for them. But he was, he flattered himself, as good as any one else at nosing out news stories, mysteries, and so forth.

Musing deeply, he walked to the ice-cream cafÉ, close to the Assembly Hall. There he ordered an ice of mixed framboise, pistachio, and coffee, and some iced raspberry syrup, and sat outside under the awning, slowly enjoying the ice, sucking the syrup through straws, and thinking. He always thought best while eating well too; with him, as with many others, high living and high thinking went together, or would have, only lack of the necessary financial and cerebral means precluded much practice of either.

While yet in the middle of the raspberry syrup he suddenly lifted his mouth from the straws, ejaculated softly, and laughed.

“It is a possibility,” he muttered. “A possibility, worth following up.... Odder things have happened ... are happening, all the time.... In fact, this is not at all an odd thing....” Decisively he rapped on the table for his bill, paid for his meal, and rose to go, not forgetting first to finish his raspberry syrup.

He walked briskly along the side of the lake to the Molard jetty, where he found a mouette in act to start for the other side. How he loved these mouette rides, the quick rush through blue water, half Geneva on either side, and the narrow shave under the Pont du Mont Blanc. He was always afraid that one day they would not quite manage it, but would hit the bridge; it was a fear of which he could not get rid. He always held his breath as they rushed under the bridge, and let it out in relief as they emerged safely beyond it. How cheap it was: a lake trip for fifteen centimes! Henry was sorry when they reached the other side. He walked thoughtfully up from the landing stage to the Secretariat, where he ascended to the room of Mr. Wilbraham. Mr. Wilbraham was not, of course, there; he was over at the Assembly Hall. But his secretary was there; a cheerful young lady typing letters with extraordinary efficiency and rapidity.

“Oh,” said Henry, “I'm sorry. I thought Mr. Wilbraham might possibly be here.”

“No,” said the young lady agreeably. “He is over at the Assembly. Will you leave a message?”

Henry laid his hat and cane on a table, and strode about the room. A large pleasant room it was, with a good carpet; the kind of room that Charles Wilbraham would have, and always did have.

“No. No, I'll look in again. Or I'll see him over there this afternoon.” He looked at his watch. “Lunch time. How quickly the morning has gone. It always does; don't you find that? And more so than usual when it's an exciting morning like this.”

“It is exciting, isn't it. Have they found him yet? I do admire him, don't you?”

“Completely. No, they haven't found him. Mr. Wilbraham says it looks sadly like an accident of some sort.”

She acknowledged his imitation of Mr. Wilbraham's voice with a smile.

“That would be tragic. Svensen, of all the delegates! One wouldn't mind most of them disappearing a bit. Some of them would be good riddances.”

“Well,” said Henry, changing the subject, “if we're both going out to lunch, can't we lunch together? I'm Beechtree, of the British Bolshevist.”

Miss Doris Wembley looked at Beechtree, rather liked him, and said, “Right. But I must finish one letter first.”

She proceeded with her efficient, rapid, and noisy labours. She did not need to look at the keyboard, she was like that type of knitter who knits the while she gazes into space; she had learnt “Now is the time for all good men to come to the help of the party.”

Henry, strolling round the room, observing details, had time to speculate absently on the wonderful race of typists. He had in the past known many of them well, and felt towards them a regard untouched by glamour. How, he had often thought, they took life for granted, unquestioning, unwondering, accepting, busy eternally with labours they understood so little, performed so well, rattling out their fusillade of notes that formed words they knew not of, sentences that, uncomprehended, yet did not puzzle them or give them pause, on topics which they knew only as occasioning cascades of words. To them one word was the same, very nearly the same, as another of similar length; words had features, but no souls; did they fail to decipher the features of one of them, another of the same dimensions would do. And what commas they wielded, what colons, what semis, what stops! But efficient they were, all the same, for they were usually approximately right, and always incredibly quick. Henry knew that those stenographers who had been taken out to Geneva were, in the main, of a more sophisticated order, of a higher intellectual equipment. But Charles Wilbraham's secretary was of the ingenuous type. Probably the more sophisticated would not stay with him. A pretty girl she was, with a round brown face, kind dark eyes, and a wide, sweet, and dimpling mouth. Henry, like every one else, liked a girl to be pretty, but, quite unlike most young men, he preferred her to be witty. The beauty of the dull bored him very soon; Henry had his eccentricities. He did not think that Miss Wembley was going to be amusing, but still, he intended to cultivate her acquaintance.

Henry looked at his watch. It was twelve forty-five. “Can't the rest wait?” he said.

“I'm just on done. It's a re-type I'm doing. I spelt parliament with a small p, and Mr. Wilbraham said he couldn't send it, not even if I rubbed it out with the eraser. He said it would show, and it was to the F.O., who are very particular.”

“My God,” Henry ejaculated, in a low yet violent tone, and gave a bitter laugh. His eyes gleamed fiercely. “I can imagine,” he said, with restraint, “that Mr. Wilbraham might be particular. He looks particular.”

“Well, he is, rather. But he's quite right, I suppose. Messy letters look too awful. Some men will sign simply anything. I don't like that.... There, now I've done.”

“Come along then,” said Henry rapidly.

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