The Assembly met again at four o'clock, and proceeded under the Deputy President with the order of the day. But it was a half-hearted business. No one was really interested in anything except the fate of Dr. Svensen, who, it had transpired from inquiry among the boat-keepers, had not taken a boat on the lake last night.

“Foul play,” said the journalist Grattan, hopefully. “Obviously foul play.”

“Ask the Bolshevist refugees,” the Times correspondent said with a shrug. For he had no opinion of these people, and believed them to be engaged in a continuous plot against the peace of the world, in combination with the Germans. The Morning Post was inclined to agree, but held that O'Shane, the delegate from the Irish Free State, was in it too. Whenever any unpleasant incident occurred, at home or abroad (such as murders, robberies, bank failures, higher income tax, Balkan wars, strikes, troubles in Ireland, or cocaine orgies), the Times said, “Ask the Bolshevists and the Germans,” and the Morning Post said, “Ask the Bolshevists and the Germans by all means, but more particularly ask Sinn Fein,” just as the Daily Herald said, “Ask the capitalists and Scotland Yard,” and some eminent littÉrateurs, “Ask the Jews.” We must all have our whipping-boys, our criminal suspects; without them sin and disaster would be too tragically diffused for our comfort. Henry Beechtree's suspect was Charles Wilbraham. He knew that he suspected Charles Wilbraham too readily; Wilbraham could not conceivably have committed all the sins of which Henry was fain to believe him guilty. Henry knew this, and kept a guard on his own over-readiness, lest it should betray him into rash accusation. Information; evidence; that was what he had to collect.

The question was, as an intelligent member of the Secretariat pointed out, who stood to benefit by the disappearance of Svensen from the scenes? Find the motive for a deed, and very shortly you will find the doer. Had Svensen a private enemy? No one knew. Many persons disapproved of the line he was apt to take in public affairs: he wanted to waste money on feeding hungry Russians (“No one is sorrier than my tender-hearted nation for starving persons,” the other delegates would say, “but we have no money to send them, and are not Russians always hungry?”) and was in an indecent hurry about disarmament, which should be a slow and patient process. (“No one is more anxious than my humane nation for peace,” said the delegates, “but there is a dignified caution to be observed.”) Yes; many persons disagreed with Svensen as to the management of the affairs of the world; but surely no one would make away with him on that account. Far more likely did it seem that he had inadvertently stumbled into the lake, after dining well. What an end to so great and good a man!

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