Campion frowned. “Are you absolutely serious when you suggest that the thing had been planned so long?”
“I take my oath on it,” said Oates, “and it wouldn’t surprise me if he had timed the attempt for November just on the off chance of a fog like this.”
Charlie Luke threw away his incredulity with a generous gesture; indeed he appeared to wash his hands of it literally.
“I suppose he has a sort of a way with him, sir?” he suggested at last, favouring the two of them with the most winning of smiles. Unconsciously he had arched his lean stomach and might have been about to burst into musical-comedy song. He had donned frank, open-hearted charm like a garment.
Oates regarded him with gloomy interest. “No,” he said, “nothing like that.”
Luke gave it up. “I’d like to see him.”
Oates hesit
