_would_ fly to
bits! But Peter isn't really that sort of badly regulated drop.

"Caspian's cursed money," he remarked, when he felt able to speak.

"Yes," I replied. "The poor girl said that she wished money were
extinct. I wish his were, anyhow!"

"Stranger things have happened," returned Peter.

"I promised Pat that we'd save Larry, and I promised myself that we'd
save her," I went on. "Jack and I have an exalted idea of your
cleverness about conducting cars and affairs in general, so we decided
to ask you to help us conspire. It was really you who made the success
of the venture at Kidd's Pines, by your marvellous conjuring trick of
getting Marcel Moncourt to come. We felt, if you could do a thing like
that you could do anything. But my gracious, you look as if you'd resort
to murder! We don't want you to go as far as that."

"I would if necessary," Peter said, "but I think it won't be necessary.
We'll scotch our snake, not kill him."

"The snake doesn't love _you_," I ventured. "I've sometimes thought he'd
do all he could to hurt you. But--but I suppose he couldn't do anything
very troublesome, could he, even if you envenomed him a little more?"

"He might be able to upset some of my arrangements," said Peter, "but in
upsetting them, his own would be under the avalanche."

I saw by his look that this wasn't just a joke. The Stormy Petrel meant
_something in particular_, something he didn't intend to explain to Jack
or me; and all my old feeling about his mysteriousness came back. "I
should feel guilty," I said, "if by asking you to plot with us, I'd
induced you to mix yourself up in a business which might be annoying."

"However it turns out, it won't be annoying," Peter answered. "Things
have gone far beyond that. If I choose, Mrs. Winston, I can put Caspian
out of the running to-morrow. Money has given him power to use this
situation for his own advantage. If he lost it----"

"Heavens, man, if he lost it, don't you see that Patricia Moore's the
sort of girl to feel she owed him allegiance?" broke in Jack, who had so
far confined himself to listening. "Any one who could take Caspian's
money away would be _giving_ him the girl."

As I heard this, I realized how _very_ clever Jack is, for neither Peter
Storm nor I had thought of that, though it was absolutely true. He and I
would have rushed wildly ahead and broken every bank Caspian had a cent
in, if we could. But we both had the wisdom to realize instant