"No, no," repeated Baggin, and beckoned him back. "For what I have to say I need no light; you interrupt me, brother."
With a muttered apology the man resumed his seat.
"I have said," continued Baggin, "that the time has come when we must seriously consider the advisability of dispersing."
"This organisation of ours has grown and grown until it has become unwieldy," he went on. "We are all business men, so there is no need for me to enlarge upon the danger that attends the house that undertakes responsibilities which it cannot personally attend to.
"We have completed a most wonderful organisation. We have employed all the ingenuities of modern science to further our plans. We have agents in every part of Europe, in India, Egypt, and America. So long as these agents have been ignorant of the identity and location of their employers, we were safe. To ensure this, we have worked through Count Poltavo, a gentleman who came to us some time ago--under peculiar conditions.
"We have employed, too, and gratefully employed, Catherine Dominguez, a charming lady, as to whose future you need have no fear. Some time ago, as you all know, we established wireless stations in the great capitals, as being the safest method by which our instructions might be transmitted without revealing to our agents the origin of these commands. A code was drawn up, certain arrangements of letters and words, and this code was deciphered and our secret revealed through the ingenuity of one man. We were prepared to meet him on a business basis. We communicated with him by wireless, and agreed to pay a sum not only to himself, but to two others, if he kept our secret and agreed to make no written record of their discovery. They promised, but their promise was broken, and it was necessary to employ other methods.
"I am fully prepared to accept responsibility for my share of the result, just as I am prepared to share responsibility for any other act which circumstances may have rendered necessary.
"And now, gentlemen, I come to the important part in my speech. By sharing the result of our operations we may each go our way, in whatever guise we think most suitable, to the enjoyment of our labours.
"In a short time for many of us the statute of limitations will have worked effectively; and for others there are States in South America that would welcome us and offer us every luxury that money can buy or heart desire.