lthough really I don't think there was
much'--and then he stopped, for he suddenly reflected that it must seem
rather ungracious to suggest that there was not much danger to a pair of
people who had come all the way from Clapham Common to look after his
life. 'There was not much craft,' he went on to say, 'displayed in that
first attempt. You will have to look after me pretty closely in the
future. No; I must spin in a hansom--it is the one thing I specially
love in London, its hansom. Here, we'll have two hansoms, and I'll take
charge of Mrs. Sarrasin, and you'll follow us, or, at least, you'll find
your way the best you can, Captain Sarrasin--and let us see who gets
there first.'

CHAPTER XV

'IF I WERE TO ASK YOU?'

It is needless to say that Hamilton had never sent any telegram asking
the Dictator to meet him on the bridge in St. James's Park or anywhere
else at eleven o'clock at night. Hamilton at first was disposed to find
fault with the letting loose of the supposed assassin, and was at all
events much in favour of giving information at Scotland Yard and putting
the police authorities on the look-out for some plot. But the opinion of
the Dictator was clear and fixed, and Hamilton naturally yielded to it.
Ericson was quite prepared to believe that some plot was expanding, but
he was convinced that it would be better to allow it to expand. The one
great thing was to find out who were the movers in the plot. If the
London Sicilian really were a hired assassin, it was clear that he was
thrown out merely as a skirmisher in the hope that he might succeed in
doing the work at once, and the secure conviction that if he failed he
could be abandoned to his fate. It was the crude form of an attempt at
political assassination. A wild outcry on the part of the Dictator's
friends would, he felt convinced, have no better effect than to put his
enemies prematurely on their guard, and inspire them to plan something
very subtle and dangerous. Or if, then, their hate did not take so
serious a form, the Dictator reasoned that they were not particularly
dangerous. So he insisted on lying low, and quietly seeing what would
come of it. He was not now disposed to underrate the danger, but he felt
convinced that the worst possible course for him would be to proclaim
the danger too soon.

Therefore, Ericson insisted that the story of the bridge and the
Sicilian knife must be kept an absolute secret for the present at least,
a