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 and also the rooms adjoining. Everything is in order," he reported.

"Particularly the pipes?" Sencort asked.

"There's nothing wrong with the pipes, sir."

"Very well," Sencort dismissed him; and then he looked at me. "Much obliged, Fanneal," he thanked me again.

Of course, he was dismissing me, but I held my ground. "The warning which reached me, Mr. Sencort, did not advise mere examination of the room," I insisted. "It said to prevent its use. I must urge you, whatever you think, not to meet in that room."

"Fanneal, if I governed my movements according to cautions of well-meaning friends, I'd have put myself and family and friends in a steel safe thirty years ago. Reed says that room is clear; it is on the fifth floor, so attack from the street is impossible. Here's Teverson now."

Another hint for me, but I stuck, and just then Teverson came in to see what was so absorbing in here, and old Sencort, in explaining why he was preferring a chat with me to a conference with M. Géroud and Lord Strathon at that hour, of course dragged in the mad idea I'd brought along. But Teverson wasn't amused by it at all.

"Reed and Weston have both examined the