Some of this feeling was contributed directly by Drasil Vaughan-Jenner, who had taken Martin’s seat between Luke and Campion and was muttering to the superintendent as though he believed himself in church. His appearance was still jaunty, but there was anxiety in his bright Welsh eyes and his voice was hard put to it to keep its natural laughter.
“My Great Man has thrown Lord Ludor out of his house, locked the front door, pulled all the blinds and sent me to be eaten instead,” he was saying. “The position seems to be that either the devices which your people have collected are not the ones which Paggen Mayo took from the children or else they have been so damaged in the interim as to be almost past reconstruction.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.” Luke’s caginess had turned his voice into
