There was a slight flush upon his pallid cheeks.
"He not only has it, but he doesn't mean to part with it.

A few hundred years ago, when the rulers of this country were men with blood in their veins, he'd have been given just one chance to tell all he knew, and hung as a traitor if he hesitated.

We don't do that sort of thing nowadays.

We rather go in for preserving traitors.

We permit them even in our own House of Commons.