Four o'clock in the morning in London was only eleven o'clock of the previous evening, Mr.Van Torp explained, and it was extremely unlikely that the Secretary of the Treasury should be in bed so early.

If he was, he was certainly not asleep; and with the facilities at the disposal of governments there was no reason why the answer should not come back in forty minutes.
It was impossible to resist such simple logic.

The lines were cleared for urgent official business between London and Washington, and in less than an hour the answer came back, to the effect that Mr.Rufus Van Torp's statement was correct in every detail; and without any interval another official message arrived, revoking the request for his extradition, which 'had been made under a most unfortunate misapprehension, due to the fact that Mr.Van Torp's visit to the Secretary of the Treasury had been regarded as confidential by the latter.' Scotland Yard expressed its regret, and Mr.Van Torp smiled and begged to be allowed, before leaving, to 'shake hands' with the three men who had been put to so much inconvenience on his account.

This democratic proposal was promptly authorised, to the no small satisfaction and profit of the three haggard officials.

So Mr.Van Torp went away, and in a few minutes he was sound asleep in the corner of his big motor-car on his way back to Derbyshire.
Lady Maud found Margaret and Logotheti walking slowly together under the trees about eleven o'clock on the following morning.