MR. THURLOW FELT a natural satisfaction as the short drive to Grosvenor Gardens was completed, and he passed through the Embassy doors. He was not merely in England again; he was, by an international fiction, upon the actual territory of the United States. He was at home, and secure. Even had he known the true origin and actual contents of the valise which he had been cajoled into taking under his protection (and he suspected the one as little as the other), he would have regarded it as an ended danger. Certainly no one would enter those sacred doors with any purpose of hostile search.

But that article of unsuspected criminality had never been a major concern and when he sat down to a breakfast such as would have beer; served in his own land, he had scarcely finished his preliminary grapefruit juice before he opened The Times (it being his deplorable habit to read the newspapers as he ate, even though his daughter, the councillor of the embassy, and two secretaries shared the meal), and saw an account of yesterday's events in Paris, which, even as they were narrated by that unimaginative periodical, was unpleasant to read.

He observed an angle which he might have anticipated from the first, but to which he had not given adequate consideration. It was not William Kindell, a British subject of no political importance, who had been arrested for murder, it was the cousin of the United States ambassador. This, in itself, however derogatory, might be of no critical consequence. Ambassadors who are immaculate in their private lives and closer family associations may survive cousins of homicidal habits. Cousins are numerous. Human nature is frail. It would be inconvenient for many if investigations were too widely spread.

But it is inexpedient for ambassadors with cousins of this quality to allow them to commit crimes in their own suites. In the best embassies, it is not done. Even The Times showed (most decorously) that it was not unaware of that. It showed it, by implication, in the care with which it explained the difference between French and English judicial procedure. Mr. Kindell had been detained rather than arrested. He was invited to give satisfactory explanations to a juge d'instruction, which it might be supposed that he would be able to do. But if this were the attitude of The Times, what would the Herald Tribune be saying now?

He looked up from the paper and met the eyes of his Second Secretary. "Alders," he said, irritably, "don't look so damned sympathetic. I'm not going to resign because of the inefficiency of the French police. If anyone thinks that, they can guess again."

"I'm sorry, sir. I wasn't thinking anything like that."

"They'............