"That's why I made Mr. Mark Antony Midwinter dance out of the Ritz Hotel on that night."
"That young man will go far. Now, Kirby, I think you understand everything, and you've got to throw in your lot with Juanita and me, for a time at any rate, and never say you didn't know what you were up against."
I took a glass of claret and lit a cigarette.
"I understand the _facts_, as you say, but I don't understand you. Allowing for all your natural and deep anxiety about Juanita, I simply fail to understand why you regard this Midwinter and his companion or companions with such apprehension. Surely you could have the man locked up to-morrow, knowing what you know about him."
Morse sighed, with a sort of gentle patience.
"A few more facts," he said; "and do reflect that it's most improbable that a man of my intelligence and resources should act as he has done without being sure of what he was doing. In the first place, I've had Midwinter watched by the most famous detectives in America, watched for years. None of these people have ever been able quite to bowl him out--a simile from your English game of cricket. But three of the most trusted and acute agents have lost their lives during these investigations, and lost them in a singularly unpleasant manner."
He sighed again, this time wearily, and I saw that his face was old and without interest or hope.
"What on earth is the use," he went on, "of telling you all I know about this man? Sir"--his voice began to rise, and a light came into the dark depths of his eyes--"Sir, if I saw his corpse before me now, I wouldn't believe him dead or his power for evil ended until I had hacked his head from his shoulders with my own hand! You cannot, I say you simply cannot realize or understand the fiendish ingenuity, persistence, and icy cruelty of this being, for I will not insult our common humanity by calling it a man. If Juanita ever gets into his hands--"
His mouth, his whole face, was working, I thought he was going to have a fit, and truth to tell, something icy began to congeal around my own heart.
"Calm yourself, sir," I said, as authoritatively as I could. "Juanita is doubly safe now that I am here, and as for Midwinter, he'll never approach us here. It's beyond the wit of mortal man, and, meanwhile, I'll see that he's apprehended and removed from all power of doing harm. I am only a young man, Mr. Morse, but I'm rather a power in the land. You see I have an important newspaper at my back, and as for you, who have already made the Government feed out of your hand in the matter of these towers, you should have gone to the Home Secretary in the first instance. At any rate, we'll go together, and believe me, we shall be listened to."