e said. "But if there is a British lord up here he isn't
very well known, Greggy. No one knows of him. No one has heard a rumor
of him. That is why we can't go to the police or the government. They'd
give small credence to what we've got to show. This letter wouldn't
count the weight of a feather without further evidence, and a lot of
it. Besides, we haven't time to go to the government. It is too far
away and too slow. And as for the police--I know of three in this
territory, and there are fifteen thousand square miles of mountains and
plains and forest in their 'beat.' It's up to you and me to find this
Lord Fitzhugh. If we can do that we will be in a position to put a
kibosh on this plot in a hurry. If we fail to run him down--"

"What then?"

"We'll have to watch our chances. I've told you all that I know, and
you're on an even working basis with me. At first I thought that I
understood the object of those who are planning to ruin us in this
cowardly manner. But I don't now. If they ruin us they also destroy the
chances of any other company that may be scheming to usurp our place.
For that reason I--"

"There must still be other factors in the game," said Gregson, as
Philip hesitated.

"There are. I want you to work out your own suspicions, Greggy, and
then we'll compare notes. Lord Fitzhugh is the key to the whole
situation. No matter who is at the bottom of this plot, Lord Fitzhugh
is the man at the working end of it. We don't care so much about the
writer of this letter as the one to whom it was written. It is evident
that he had planned to be at Churchill, for the letter is addressed to
him here. But he hasn't shown up. He has never been here, so far as I
can discover."

"I'd give a year's growth for a copy of the BRITISH PEERAGE or a WHO'S
WHO," mused Gregson, flecking the ashes from his cigarette. "Who the
deuce can this Lord Fitzhugh be? What sort of an Englishman would mix
up in a dirty job of this kind? You might imagine him to be one of the
men behind the guns, like Brokaw. But, by George, he's working the
dirty end of it himself, according to that letter!"

"You're beginning to use your head already, Greggy," said Philip, a
little more cheerfully. "I've asked myself that question a hundred
times during the last three days, and I'm more at sea than ever. If it
had been plain Tom Brown or Bill Jones, the name would not have
suggested anything beyond what you have read in the letter. That's the
quest