his unexpectedness, you know, and we won't beat him by plodding only. I
believe the wildest course is the wisest, for it's the most likely to
intersect his ... Who's the poet among us?'

'Peter,' I said. 'But he's pinned down with a game leg in Germany. All
the same we must rope him in.'

By this time we had all cheered up, for it is wonderful what a tonic
there is in a prospect of action. The butler brought in tea, which it
was Bullivant's habit to drink after dinner. To me it seemed fantastic
to watch a slip of a girl pouring it out for two grizzled and
distinguished servants of the State and one battered soldier--as
decorous a family party as you would ask to see--and to reflect that
all four were engaged in an enterprise where men's lives must be
reckoned at less than thistledown.

After that we went upstairs to a noble Georgian drawing-room and Mary
played to us. I don't care two straws for music from an
instrument--unless it be the pipes or a regimental band--but I dearly
love the human voice. But she would not sing, for singing to her, I
fancy, was something that did not come at will, but flowed only like a
bird's note when the mood favoured. I did not want it either. I was
content to let 'Cherry Ripe' be the one song linked with her in my
memory.

It was Macgillivray who brought us back to business.

'I wish to Heaven there was one habit of mind we could definitely
attach to him and to no one else.' (At this moment 'He' had only one
meaning for us.)

'You can't do nothing with his mind,' Blenkiron drawled. 'You can't
loose the bands of Orion, as the Bible says, or hold Leviathan with a
hook. I reckoned I could and made a mighty close study of his de-vices.
But the darned cuss wouldn't stay put. I thought I had tied him down to
the double bluff, and he went and played the triple bluff on me.
There's nothing doing that line.'

A memory of Peter recurred to me.

'What about the "blind spot"?' I asked, and I told them old Peter's pet
theory. 'Every man that God made has his weak spot somewhere, some flaw
in his character which leaves a dull patch in his brain. We've got to
find that out, and I think I've made a beginning.'

Macgillivray in a sharp voice asked my meaning.

'He's in a funk ... of something. Oh, I don't mean he's a coward. A man
in his trade wants the nerve of a buffalo. He could give us all points
in courage. What I mean is that he's not clean white all through. There
are yellow streaks