"Kennedy," he blurted out in a tone of suppressed excitement, "can
I trust you to keep a big secret?"

Craig looked at him reproachfully, but said nothing.

"I beg your pardon--a thousand times," hastened Burke. "I was so
excited, I wasn't thinking--"

"Once is enough, Burke," laughed Kennedy, his good nature restored
at Burke's crestfallen appearance.

"Well, you see," went on the Secret Service man, "this thing is so
very important that--well, I forgot."

He sat down and hitched his chair close to us, as he went on in a
lowered, almost awestruck tone.

"Kennedy," he whispered, "I'm on the trail, I think, of something
growing out of these terrible conditions in Europe that will tax
the best in the Secret Service. Think of it, man. There's an
organization, right here in this city, a sort of assassin's club,
as it were, aimed at all the powerful men the world over. Why, the
most refined and intellectual reformers have joined with the most
red-handed anarchists and--"

"Sh! not so loud," cautioned Craig. "I think I have one of them in
the next room. Have they done anything yet to the Baron?"

It was Burke's turn now to look from one to the other of us in
unfeigned surprise that we should already know something of his