ccording to his condition--on one
thing Doctor Mary would stake her life; he used the combination
knife-and-fork!

For it was over that implement that Beaumaroy had tripped up. It ought to
have been hidden before she was admitted to the cottage. Somebody had
been careless, somebody had blundered--whether Beaumaroy himself or his
servant was immaterial. Beaumaroy had lied, readily and ingeniously, but
not quite readily enough. The dart of his hand had betrayed him; that,
and a look in his eyes, a tell-tale mirth which had seemed to mock both
her and himself, and had made his ingenious lie even at the moment
unconvincing. Yes, whether Mr. Saffron wore the shawl or not, he
certainly used the combination table implement!

And the "poems?" The poems which Mr. Saffron recited to himself in bed,
and which he had said, in Captain Alec's hearing, were good and "went
well." It was Beaumaroy, of course, who had called them poems; the
Captain had merely repeated the description. But with her newly found
insight Doctor Mary knew better. What Mr. Saffron declaimed in that
vibrating, metallic voice, were not poems, but--speeches!

And "Morocco" itself! To anybody who remembered history for a few years
back, even with the general memory of the man in the street, to anybody
who had read the controversies about the war, Morocco brought not puzzle,
but enlightenment. For had not Morocco been really the starting point of
the Years of Crisis--those years intermittent in excitement, but constant
in anxiety? Beaumaroy was to start tomorrow for Morocco--on the strength
of the hieroglyphics! Perhaps he was to go on from Morocco to Libya;
perhaps he was to raise the Senussi (Mary had followed the history of the
war), to make his appearance at Cairo, Jerusalem, Bagdad! He was to be a
forerunner, was Mr. Beaumaroy. Mr. Saffron, his august master, would
follow in due course! With a sardonic smile she wondered how the
ingenious man would get out of starting for Morocco; perhaps he would not
succeed in obtaining a passport, or, that excuse failing, in eluding the
vigilance of the British authorities. Or some more hieroglyphics might
come, carrying another message, postponing his start, saying that the
propitious moment had not yet arrived after all. There were several
devices open to ingenuity; many ways in which Beaumaroy might protract a
situation not so bad for him even as it stood, and quite rich in
possibilities. Her acid smile was turned agai