"I want to warn you that so far as your further progress is concerned, there is a snake in the grass somewhere.

The manuscript of which Williams spoke to you, and which would of course damn you forever with any party which depended for its existence even indirectly upon the trades unions, was offered to me, without any hint at financial return, on the sole condition that I guaranteed its public production.

It is perfectly obvious, therefore, that there is some one stirring who means harm.

I speak to you now only as a friend and as a well-wisher.

Did I understand Williams to say that the document was stolen from your study at Martinhoe ?" "It was stolen," Tallente replied, "by my secretary, Anthony Palliser, who disappeared with it one night in August." "'Disappeared' seems rather a vague term," Horlock remarked.
"A trifle melodramatic, I admit," Tallente assented.