ed call
them the Wild Birds.'

'Do they work together?' I asked.

'Yes. They each get their own jobs to do, but they're apt to flock
together for a big piece of devilment. There were four of them in
France a year ago before the battle of the Aisne, and they pretty near
rotted the French Army. That's so, Colonel?'

The soldier nodded grimly. 'They seduced our weary troops and they
bought many politicians. Almost they succeeded, but not quite. The
nation is sane again, and is judging and shooting the accomplices at
its leisure. But the principals we have never caught.'

'You hear that, Dick, said Blenkiron. 'You're satisfied this isn't a
whimsy of a melodramatic old Yank? I'll tell you more. You know how
Ivery worked the submarine business from England. Also, it was the Wild
Birds that wrecked Russia. It was Ivery that paid the Bolshevists to
sedooce the Army, and the Bolshevists took his money for their own
purpose, thinking they were playing a deep game, when all the time he
was grinning like Satan, for they were playing his. It was Ivery or
some other of the bunch that doped the brigades that broke at
Caporetto. If I started in to tell you the history of their doings you
wouldn't go to bed, and if you did you wouldn't sleep ... There's just
this to it. Every finished subtle devilry that the Boche has wrought
among the Allies since August 1914 has been the work of the Wild Birds
and more or less organized by Ivery. They're worth half a dozen army
corps to Ludendorff. They're the mightiest poison merchants the world
ever saw, and they've the nerve of hell ...'

'I don't know,' I interrupted. 'Ivery's got his soft spot. I saw him in
the Tube station.'

'Maybe, but he's got the kind of nerve that's wanted. And now I rather
fancy he's whistling in his flock.'

Blenkiron consulted a notebook. 'Pavia--that's the Argentine
man--started last month for Europe. He transhipped from a coasting
steamer in the West Indies and we've temporarily lost track of him, but
he's left his hunting-ground. What do you reckon that means?'

'It means,' Blenkiron continued solemnly, 'that Ivery thinks the game's
nearly over. The play's working up for the big climax ... And that
climax is going to be damnation for the Allies, unless we get a move
on.'

'Right,' I said. 'That's what I'm here for. What's the move?'

'The Wild Birds mustn't ever go home, and the man they call Ivery or
Bommaerts or Chelius has to decease. It's a cold-blood