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296 "Look at this entry here," he grunted. "That blighter is a Member of Parliament. What's he getting four payments of a thousand pounds for?"

"Why, surely, to buy some nice warm under-clothes with," grinned the detective. Then he leaned forward and glanced at the name. "But isn't he some pot in one of your big trade unions?"

"Heaven knows," grunted Hugh. "I only saw the blighter once, and then his shirt was dirty." He turned over a few more pages thoughtfully. "Why, if these are the sums of money Peterson has blown, the man must have spent a fortune. Two thousand pounds to Ivolsky. Incidentally, that's the bloke who had words with the whatnot on the stairs."

In silence they continued their study of the book. The whole of England and Scotland had been split up into districts, regulated by population rather than area, and each district appeared to be in charge of one director. A varying number of sub-districts in every main division had each their sub-director and staff, and at some of the names Drummond rubbed his eyes in amazement. Briefly, the duties of every man were outlined: the locality in which his work lay, his exact responsibilities, so that overlapping was reduced to a minimum. In each case the staff was small, the work largely that of organisation. But in each district there appeared ten or a dozen names of men who were euphemistically described as lecturers; while at the end of the book there appeared nearly fifty names—both of men and women—who were proudly denoted as first-class general lecturers. And if Drummond had rubbed his eyes at some of the