He smiled very faintly.
"Well," he said, "this time I have to win or throw in my chips. Now if you like we'll have some lunch, and afterwards, if you'll forgive my taking the liberty of mentioning it, you had better buy some clothes."
"You don't like this black silk?" she asked wistfully. "I got it at a store up-town, and they told me these sort of skirts were all the rage over here."
"Well, you can see for yourself they aren't," he remarked, a little drily. "London is a queer place in many ways, especially about clothes. You're either right or you're wrong, and you've got to be right, Nora. We'll see about it presently."
They left the room together. Crawshay looked after them with interest.
"This affair," he told his companion, "grows hourly more and more interesting. You've been up against Jocelyn Thew, you tell me. Well, I am perfectly certain that that girl, whose coming gave him such a start, was a young woman I had turned away from an hotel in Washington. She was in the game then—more locally, perhaps, but still in the same game. I used to sit and talk to her in the afternoons sometimes. Finest brown eyes I ever saw in my life. I wonder if there is anything between her and Jocelyn Thew," he added, looking through the door with a faintly disapproving note in his tone,—a note which a woman would have recognised at once as jealousy.
"If you ask me, I should say no," the other answered. "I've kept tabs on Jocelyn Thew for a bit, and I've had hisdossier. There's never been a woman's name mentioned in connection with him—don't seem as though he'd ever moved round or taken a meal with one all the time he was in New York. To tell you the truth, Mr. Crawshay, that's just what makes it so difficult to get your hands on a man you want. Nine times out of ten it's through the women we get home. The man who stands clear of them has an extra chance or two—Say, what time this evening?"
"Come to my rooms at 178, St. James's Street, at seven o'clock," Crawshay directed. "I've a little investigation to make before then."
Crawshay took a taxicab from the Savoy to Claridge's Hotel, sent up his card and was conducted to Katharine Beverley's sitting room on the first floor. She kept him waiting for a few moments, and he felt a sudden instinct of curiosity as he noticed the great pile of red roses which a maid had only just finished arranging. When she came in, he looked towards her in surprise. She appeared to have grown thinner, and there were dark rims under her eyes. Her words of greeting were colourless. She seemed almost afraid to meet his steady gaze.
"I ought to apologise for calling in the morning," he said, "but I ventured to do so, hoping that you would come out and have some lunch with me."
"I really don't feel well enough," she replied. "London is not agreeing with me at all."
"You are ill?" he exclaimed, with some concern.
She looked at the closed door through which the maid had issued.
"Not exactly ill. I have some anxieties," she answered. "It is kind of you to keep your promise and come. Please tell me exactly what happened? You know how interested I am."
"I have unfortunately nothing to report but failure," he replied. "Everything seems to have happened exactly as the doctor on the ship suggested. The detectives at Liverpool were quite smart. We were able to trace the car without much difficulty, and the body of your patient Phillips was found at his home, the other side of Chester. We obtained permission to make an examination, and we found that, just as we expected, fresh bandages had been put on only a few hours previously."
"And Doctor Gant?"
"He is at an hotel in London. He is watched night and day, but he seems to divide his time between genuine sight-seeing and trying to arrange for his passage home. Naturally, the whole of his effects have been searched, but without the slightest result."
"And—and Mr. Jocelyn Thew?"
"His business in Liverpool seems to have detained him a very short time. He is staying now at the Savoy Hotel. Needless to say, his effects too have been thoroughly searched, without result."
"You know that he sent me these?" she asked, glancing towards the roses.
"I saw him buying them."
Her fingers had strayed over one of the blossoms, and he noticed that while they talked she was convulsively crushing it into pulp.
"Were these detectives from Liverpool," she asked, "able to keep any watch upon Doctor Gant and Mr. Jocelyn Thew after—Chester?"
"To some extent. There is no doubt that Jocelyn Thew spent the first night in Liverpool. After that he travelled to London and took up his residence at the Savoy. Here Doctor Gant, who had travelled up from Chester, called upon him, late in the afternoon of the day of his arrival. They spent some time together, and subsequently the doctor took a room at the Regent Palace Hotel. The two men dined together at the Savoy grill, and took a box at the Alhambra music-hall, where they spent the evening. They appear to have returned to Jocelyn Thew's rooms, had a whisky and soda each and separated. There is no record of their having spoken to any other person or visited any other place."
"And their rooms have been searched?"
"By the most skilled men we have."
She pulled another of the roses to pieces.
"So it comes to this," she said. "All these documents, of whose existence both you and the American police knew, have been brought from America to England, and even now you cannot locate them."
"At present we cannot," he confessed drily, "but I am not prepared to admit for a single moment that they are ever likely to reach their destination."
"Jocelyn Thew is very clever," she reminded him calmly.
"I am tired of being told so," he replied, with a touch of irritation in his tone.
She smiled.
"You probably need your luncheon! If you care to come downstairs with me," she invited, "we can finish our conversation."
"I shall be only too pleased."
Katharine Beverley's table was in a quiet corner, and she sat with her back to the window, but even under such circumstances the change in her during the last few days was noticeable. There was a frightened light in her eyes, her cheeks were entirely colourless, her hands seemed almost transparent. Such a change in so short a time seemed almost incredible. Crawshay found himself unable to ignore it.
"I am very sorry to see you looking so unwell," he observed sympathetically. "I am afraid the shock of your voyage across the Atlantic has been too much for you."
"I am terribly disturbed," she confessed. "I am disappointed, too, in Mr.Jocelyn Thew. One hates to be made use of so flagrantly."
"You really knew nothing, then, until those things were discovered in your stateroom?"
"That question," she replied, "I am not going to answer."
"But the main part of the plot?" he persisted, "the bandages?"
"Doctor Gant never allowed me to touch them. That is what I found so inexplicable,—what first set me wondering."
"The whole scheme was very cleverly thought out," Crawshay pronounced, "but if you will forgive my repeating a previous speculation, Miss Beverley, the greatest mystery about it all, to me, is how you, Miss Katharine Beverley, whose name and reputation in New York stands so high, were induced to leave your work, your social engagements and your home, at a time like this, when your country really has claims upon you, to act as ordinary sick nurse to a New York clerk of humble means who turns out to have been nothing but the tool of Jocelyn Thew."
"I am still unable to explain that," she told him.
He realised the state of tension in which she was and suddenly abandoned the whole subject. He spoke of the theatres, asked of her friends in town, discussed the news of the day, and made no further allusion of any sort to the mystery which surrounded them. It was not until after they had been served with their coffee in the lounge that he reverted to more serious matters.
"Miss Beverley," he said, "for your own sake I am exceedingly unwilling to leave you like this. I may seem to you to be an inquisitor, but believe me I am a friendly one. I cannot see that you have anything to lose in being frank with me. I wish to help you. I wish to relieve the anxiety from which I know that you are suffering. Give me your confidence."
"You ask a very difficult thing," she sighed.
"Difficult but not impossible," he insisted. "I can quite understand that your discovery of the fact that you had been made use of to assist in the bringing to England of treasonable documents is of itself likely to be a severe shock to you, but, if you will permit me to say so, it is not sufficient to account for your present state of nerves."
"You don't know all that is happening," she replied, in some agitation. "There is a very astute lady detective who has a room near mine, and a man who shadows me every time I come in or go out. I am expecting every moment that the manager will ask me to leave the hotel."
"That is all very annoying, of course," he acknowledged sympathetically, "and yet I believe that at the back of your head there is still something else troubling you."
"You are very observant," she murmured.
"In your case," he replied, "close observation is scarcely necessary. Why, it is only four days since we left the steamer, and you look simply the wreck of yourself."
"A great deal has happened since then," she confessed.
He seized upon the admission.
"You see, I was right.—There is something else! Miss Beverley, I am your friend. You must confide in me."
"It would be useless," she assured him sadly.
"You cannot be sure of that," he insisted. "If this espionage gets on your nerves, I believe that I have influence enough to have it removed, provided that you will let me bring a friend of mine to see you here and ask you a few questions."
She shook her head.
"It is not the espionage alone," she declared. "I am confronted with something altogether different, something about which I cannot speak."
"Is this man Jocelyn Thew connected with it in any way?" he demanded.
She winced.
"Why should you ask that question?"
"Because it is perfectly clear," he continued, "that Jocelyn Thew exercises some sort of unholy influence over you, an influence, I may add, which it is my intention to destroy."
She smiled bitterly.
"If you can destroy anything that Jocelyn Thew means to keep alive," she began—
"Oh, please don't believe that Jocelyn Thew is infallible," he interrupted. "I have had a long experience of diplomatists and plotters and even criminals, and I can assure you that no man breathing is possessed of more than ordinary human powers. Jocelyn Thew has brought it off against us this time, but then, you see, one must lose a trick now and then. It is the next step which counts."
"Oh, the next step will be all right!" she replied, with a hard little laugh. "He has brought his spoils to England, although there must have been twenty or thirty detectives on board, and you won't be able to stop his disposing of them exactly as he likes."
"I don't agree with you," he assured her confidently. "That, however, is not what I want to talk about. You are in a false position. In the struggle which is going on now, your heart and soul should be with us and against Jocelyn Thew."
Her eyes were lit with a momentary terror.
"You don't suppose for a moment," she said, "that my sympathies are not with my own country and our joint cause?"
"I don't," he replied. "On the other hand, your actions should follow upon your sympathies. There is something sinister in your present state. I want you to tell me just what the terror is that is sitting in your heart, that has changed you like this. Jocelyn Thew has some hold upon you. If so, you need a man to stand by your side. Can't you treat me as a friend?"
She softened at his words. For a moment she sat quite silent.
"I can only repeat to you what I told you once before," she said. "If you are picturing Jocelyn Thew to yourself as a blackmailer, or anything of that sort, you are wrong. I am under the very deepest obligations to him."
"But surely," he protested, "you have paid your debt, whatever it was?"
"He admits it."
"And yet the terror remains?"
"It remains," she repeated sadly.
Crawshay meditated for a moment.
"Look here, Miss Beverley," he said, "I have a friend who is chief in this country of a department which I will not name. Will you dine with me to-night and let me invite him to meet you?"
She shook her head.
"It is a very kind thought," she declared, "but I am engaged. Mr. JocelynThew is dining here."
Crawshay's face for a moment was very black indeed. He rose slowly to his feet.
"I know that you mean to be kind," she continued, "and I fear that I must seem very ungrateful. Believe me, I am not. I am simply faced with one of those terrible problems which must be solved, and yet which admit of no help from any living person."
Crawshay's attitude had grown perceptibly stiffer.
"I am very sorry indeed, Miss Beverley," he said, "that you cannot give me your confidence. I am very sorry for my own sake, and I am sorry for yours."
"Is that a threat?" she asked.
"You know the old proverb," he answered, as he bowed over her fingers."'Those who are not on my side are against me.'"
"You are going to treat me as an enemy?"
"Until you prove yourself to be a friend."
At a quarter to eight that evening, a young man who had made fitful appearances in the lounge of Claridge's Restaurant during the last half-hour went to the telephone and rang up a certain West End number.
"Are these Mr. Crawshay's rooms?" he asked.
"Mr. Crawshay speaking," was the reply.
"Brightman there?"
Crawshay turned away from the telephone and handed the receiver to the detective.
"What news, Henshaw?" the latter enquired.
"Miss Beverley dines at her usual table, sir, at eight o'clock," was the reply. "The table is set for three."
"For three?" Brightman exclaimed.
"For three?" Crawshay echoed, turning from the sideboard, where he had been in the act of mixing some cocktails.
"You are quite sure the third place isn't a mistake?" Brightman asked.
"Quite sure, sir," was the prompt reply. "I am acquainted with one of the head waiters here, and I understand that two gentlemen are expected."
"Anything else?"
"Nothing, sir. Miss Beverley sent away two parcels this afternoon, which were searched downstairs. They were quite unimportant."
"I shall expect to hear from you again," Brightman directed, "within half an hour. If the third person is a stranger, try and find out his name."
"I'll manage that all right, Mr. Brightman. The young lady has just come down. I'll be getting back into the lounge."
Brightman turned around to Crawshay, who was in the act of shaking the cocktails.
"A third party," he observed.
"Interesting," Crawshay declared, "very interesting! Perhaps the intermediary. It might possibly be Doctor Gant, though."
The detective shook his head.
"Three quarters of an hour ago," he said, "Doctor Gant went into Gatti's for a chop. He was quite alone and in morning clothes."
Crawshay poured the amber-coloured liquid which he had been shaking into a frosted glass, handed it to his companion and filled one for himself.
"Here's hell to Jocelyn Thew, anyway!" he exclaimed, with a note of real feeling in his tone.
"If I thought," Brightman declared, "that drinking that toast would bring him any nearer to it, I should become a confirmed drunkard. As it is, sir—my congratulations! A very excellent mixture!"
He set down his glass empty and Crawshay turned away to light a cigarette.
"No," he decided, "I don't think that it would be Doctor Gant. Jocelyn Thew has finished with him all right. He did his job well and faithfully, but he was only a hired tool. Speculation, however, is useless. We must wait for Henshaw's news. Perhaps this third guest, whoever he may be, may give us a clue as to Jocelyn Thew's influence over Miss Beverley."
The telephone rang a few minutes later. Crawshay this time took up the receiver, and Brightman the spare one which hung by the side. It was Henshaw speaking.
"Miss Beverley has just gone in to dinner," he announced. "She is accompanied by Mr. Jocelyn Thew and a young officer in the uniform of a Flight Commander."
"What is his name?" Crawshay asked.
"I have had no opportunity of finding out yet," was the reply. "I believe that he is staying in the hotel, and he seems to be on very intimate terms with Miss Beverley."
"On no account lose sight of the party," Crawshay directed, "and try and find out the young soldier's name. Wasn't he introduced to Jocelyn Thew?"
"Not a bit of it," was the prompt reply. "They shook hands very much like old friends."
"Go back and watch," Crawshay directed. "I must know his name. The sooner you can find out, the better. I want to get away within a few minutes, if I can."
They left the instrument. Crawshay, who seemed a little nervous, took a cigarette from an open box which he passed across to his companion, and strolled up and down the room for a few moments with his hands in his pockets.
"A young officer," he remarked, "presumably English, known to both Miss Beverley and Jocelyn Thew, seems rather a puzzle. He may be the connecting link. I hope to goodness your man won't be long, Brightman."
"Are you in a hurry?" the detective asked.
Crawshay nodded.
"I want to get round to the Savoy," he announced.
Brightman smiled slightly.
"Were you thinking about the young lady, sir?" he asked.
"I thought it might be useful to renew my acquaintance with her," Crawshay explained, a little laboriously. "I shouldn't think she'd go out alone."
"She has probably made some friends by this time," Brightman observed.
Crawshay dropped his eyeglass and polished it.
"From my experience of the young lady," he said, a little stiffly, "I should think it improbable. I happened to meet her twice in New York, and she struck me as being an extraordinarily well-behaved and, in her natural way, very attractive person."
"Do you suppose that she came to Europe after Jocelyn Thew?" Brightman asked.
"Oh, damn Jocelyn Thew!" Crawshay replied. "I should think it most unlikely. You and I have both seen the man'sdossier. Most cold-blooded person alive."
The telephone broke in once more upon their conversation. Crawshay took up the receiver. It was Henshaw speaking.
"I made a mistake about the uniform, sir," he announced. "The young man is in the Canadian Flying Corps and he is the young lady's brother. He is called Captain Beverley."
"Her brother!" Crawshay exclaimed.
"The connecting link!" Brightman murmured.
Meanwhile, the little dinner at Claridge's, of which sketchy tidings were being conveyed to the two occupants of Crawshay's flat by Henshaw, was settling down, so far as the two men were concerned, into a cheery enough meal. There had been a little strangeness at first, but Jocelyn Thew's hearty welcome of his young friend, and his genuine pleasure at seeing him, had quickly broken the ice. Katharine, however, although she had a shade more colour than earlier in the day, had sometimes the air of a Banquo at the feast. She listened almost feverishly to Jocelyn Thew, whenever he seemed inclined to turn the conversation into a certain channel, and she watched her brother a little anxiously as the waiter filled up his glass, unchecked, every few minutes. The likeness between the two was apparent enough, although marked by certain differences. Beverley was tall, of exceedingly powerful build, and with a fresh, strong face which would have been remarkably attractive but for the weak mouth and the slightly puffy cheeks.
"I can't conceive anything more fortunate than this meeting," Jocelyn Thew declared, as he inspected the cigars which had been brought round to him, with the air of a connoisseur. "Quite an extraordinary coincidence, too, that you should turn up in London on five days' leave, the very day that your sister arrives from the States. Tell me, are you right up at the front?"
"Right beyond it, most days," was the cheerful reply. "We spend most of our time over the German lines."
"Lucky fellow!" Jocelyn Thew sighed. "You are getting now what a few years ago one had to defy the law for—real, thrilling sensations. It's a life for men, yours."
The young man's hand shook a little as he raised his glass. He looked towards Jocelyn Thew almost appealingly.
"It's a splendid life," he assented, talking rapidly and with the air of one who wishes to stifle conversation. "I had hard work to get my wings, but I guess I'm all right now. The engine part of it never gave me any trouble, but I suffered from a kind of sickness the first few times I went up. It's a gorgeous sensation, flying. The worst of it is we never know when those cunning Germans aren't coming out with something fresh. They stung us up last week with a dozen planes of an entirely new pattern, two hundred and fifty horse-power engines on a small frame. Gee, they gave some of our elderly machines a touching up, I can tell you!"
"So you fly over the German lines most days, eh?" Jocelyn Thew ruminated.
"We dropped a few thousand copies of the President's speech last Monday," the young man told them. "That ought to give them something to think about. They only know just what they are told. The last batch of prisoners that were brought in firmly believed that one of their armies had landed in England and that London was on the point of falling."
"All war," Jocelyn Thew said didactically, "is carried on under a cloud of misconception."
The young man stretched himself out. He had dined well and his courage was returning. He asked a question which up till then he had felt inclined to shirk.
"What licks me," he declared suddenly, "is finding you two over here. What ever brought you across, Katharine?"
There was a brief silence. Katharine seemed uncertain how to answer. It wasJocelyn Thew who took up the challenge.
"A little over a fortnight ago," he explained, "I called upon your sister in New York. I begged her to perform a certain service for me. She consented. The execution of that service brought her across from New York on board theCity of Boston."
"But have you two been seeing anything of one another, then? You never mentioned Thew in any of your letters, Katharine?"
"Your sister and I have not met since a certain memorable occasion,"Jocelyn Thew replied.
The young man shivered and drained his glass.
"What was this service?" he enquired.
"Your sister played sick nurse upon the steamer to a person in whom I was interested, and who was operated upon in her hospital," Jocelyn Thew explained. "He was an Englishman, and very anxious to reach his own country before he died."
"I can't quite catch on to it," Beverley admitted.
Jocelyn Thew glanced carelessly around. His manner was the reverse of suspicious, but he only resumed his speech when he was sure that not even a waiter was within hearing.
"It happened to form part of an important plan of mine," he said, "that a man who was dangerously ill should be brought over to England without raising any suspicion as to hisbona fides. I made use of your sister's name and social position to ensure this. There has been, as I think you have often acknowledged, Beverley, a debt owing from you to me. Half of that debt your sister has paid."
"You haven't been getting Katharine mixed up in any crooked business?" her brother demanded excitedly.
"Your sister ran no risk whatever," Jocelyn Thew assured him. "She performed her share of the bargain excellently. It is just possible," he continued, with a glint of fire in his eyes and a peculiar, cold emphasis creeping into his words, "that it may fall to your lot to wipe out the remainder of the debt."
Beverley moved in his chair uneasily.
"You will remember," he said, "that things have changed. I am not a free agent now. I entered upon this fighting business as an adventure, but, my God, Thew, it's got into my blood! I've seen things, felt things. I don't want anything to come between me and the glorious life I live day by day."
Jocelyn Thew nodded approvingly.
"That's the proper spirit, Beverley," he declared. "I always knew you had pluck. Quite the proper spirit! Your sister showed the same courage when the necessity came."
"Oh, don't bring me into this, please!" she interrupted.
"You seem to have been brought into it," her brother observed grimly, "andI'm not sure that I am satisfied. I can pay my own debts."
There was a note of rising anger in his tone. Katharine laid her fingers upon his hand.
"Don't imagine things, please, Dick," she begged. "It is my own foolishness if I am disturbed. I really had nothing to do. Mr. Thew has been most considerate."
"In any case," Jocelyn Thew went on, "I think that the matter had better be discussed another time, when we are alone. We might have to make reference to things which are best not mentioned in a public place."
For a moment the young man's eyes challenged his. Then they fell. He shivered a little.
"Why ever speak of them?" he demanded.
"Ah, well, we'll see," Jocelyn Thew observed. "Now what about an hour or two at a music-hall? I have a box at the Alhambra."
Katharine rose at once to her feet. They all made their way into the lounge. Whilst they waited for her to fetch her cloak, Beverley swung round to his companion.
"Look here," he said, "for myself it doesn't matter—you know that—but what game are you playing? I don't know much about your life, of course, before those few days, but on your own showing you were out for big things. Are you known here? Is it anything—anything against the law, this business you're on? I don't care for myself—you know that. It's Katharine I'm thinking of."
Jocelyn Thew knocked the ash from his cigar. He smiled deprecatingly at his companion. Certainly there was no man in that very fashionable restaurant who looked less like a criminal.
"My dear Beverley," he expostulated, "you must remember that I am an exceedingly clever person. I am suspected of any number of misdemeanours. I will not say that there are not one or two of which I have not been guilty, but I have never left behind me any proof. I dare say the English police over here look on me sometimes just as hungrily as the New York ones. They feel in their hearts that I am an adventurer. They feel that I have been connected with some curious enterprises, both in the States and various other countries of the globe. They know very well that where there has been fighting and loot and danger, I have generally followed under my own flag. They know all this, but they can prove nothing against me. They can only watch me, and that they do wherever I am. They are watching me now, every hour of the day."
"It isn't," the young man commenced, with a sudden break in his tone—
Jocelyn shook his head.
"No, my young friend," he said, "the curtain fell upon that little episode. I doubt whether there is even a police record of it. It isn't the lives of individuals I am juggling with to-day. It's the life of a nation."
"Are you a spy?" Beverley asked him hoarsely.
"Your sister," Jocelyn Thew pointed out, "is waiting for us."
Crawshay, having the good fortune to find, as he issued from his rooms, a taxicab whose driver's ideas of speed were in accordance with his own impatience, managed to reach the Savoy at a few minutes before eight. He entered the hotel by the Court entrance. An insignificant-looking young man with a fair moustache and watery eyes touched him on the shoulder as he passed through the Court lobby. Crawshay glanced lazily around and assured himself that they were unobserved.
"Anything fresh?" he asked laconically.
"Nothing. We have searched Miss Sharey's rooms thoroughly, and two of our men have been over Thew's apartments again."
"Miss Sharey up-stairs?"
The young man shook his head.
"Hasn't been up for some hours," he reported.
Crawshay nodded and strolled on. He left his coat and hat in charge of the attendant, and entered the grill room. Here, however, he met with disappointment. The place was crowded but his search was methodical. There was no sign there of Nora Sharey. He climbed the few stairs and entered the smoking room. Seated in an armchair, reading a novel, he discovered the young lady of whom he was in search.
He crossed the room at a slow saunter, as though on his way to the bar, and paused before the girl's chair. She laid down her book and looked up at him. Her smile at once assured him of a welcome.
"I am glad that I am not altogether forgotten, Miss Sharey," he said, holding out his hand which she promptly accepted. "I suppose it still is Miss Sharey, is it? I hope so."
"I guess the name's all right," she replied. "Glad to see you don't bear any ill-will against me, Mr. Crawshay. You Englishmen sometimes get so peevish when things don't go quite your way, and you weren't saying nice things to me last time we met."
Crawshay smiled and glanced at the seat by her side. She made room for him, and he subsided into the vacant space with a little sigh of content.
"A man's profession," he confided, "sometimes makes large and repugnant demands upon him."
"If that means you are sorry you were rude to me last time we met down inFourteenth Street," she said, "I guess I may as well accept your apology.You were a trifle disappointed then, weren't you?"
"We acted," Crawshay explained, with studied laboriousness,—"my friends and I acted, that is to say—upon inconclusive information. America at that time, you see, was a neutral Power, and the facilities granted us by the New York police were limited in their character. My department was thoroughly convinced that the—er—restaurant of which your father was the proprietor was something more than the ordinary meeting place of that section of your country-people who carried their enmity towards my country to an unreasonable extent."
She looked at him admiringly.
"Say, you know how to talk!" she observed. "What about getting an innocent girl turned out of a job at Washington, though?"
Crawshay stroked his long chin reflectively.
"You don't suppose," he began—
"Oh, don't yarn!" she interrupted. "I'm not squealing. You knew very well that I'd no need to take a post as telephone operator, and you did your duty when you got me turned off. It was very clever of you," she went on, "to tumble to me."
Crawshay accepted the compliment with a smile.
"If you will permit me to say so, Miss Sharey," he declared, "you are what we call in this country a good sportsman."
"Oh, I can keep on the tracks all right," she assented. "I guess I am a little easier to deal with, for instance, than your friend Mr. Jocelyn Thew."
Crawshay frowned. His expression became gloomier.
"I am bound to confess, Miss Sharey," he sighed, "that your friend Mr.Jocelyn Thew has been the disappointment of my life."
"Some brains, eh?"
"He has brains, courage and luck," Crawshay pronounced. "Against these three things it is very hard work to bring off—shall I say acoup?"
"The man who gets the better of Jocelyn Thew," she declared, with a little laugh, "deserves all the nuts. He is a sure winner every time. You're up against him now, aren't you?"
"More or less," Crawshay confessed. "I crossed on the steamer with him."
"I bet that didn't do you much good!"
"I lost the first game," Crawshay confessed candidly. "I see that you know all about it."
"No need to put me wiser than I am," the girl observed carelessly. "JocelynThew's no talker."
"Not unless it serves his purpose. It is astonishing," Crawshay went on reflectively, "how the science of detection has changed during the last ten years. When I was an apprentice at it—and though you may not think it. Miss Sharey, I am a professional, not an amateur, although I am generally employed on Government business—secrecy was our watchword. We hid in corners, we were stealthy, we always posed as being something we weren't. We should have denied emphatically having the slightest interest in the person under surveillance. In these days, however, everything is changed. We play the game with the cards upon the table—all except the last two or three, perhaps—and curiously enough, I am not at all sure that it doesn't add finesse to the game."
Her eyes flashed appreciatively.
"You're dead right," she acknowledged. "Take us two, for instance. You know very well that Jocelyn Thew is a pal of mine. You know very well that I shall see him within the next twenty-four hours. You know very well that you're out to hunt him to the death, and you know that I know it. Every question you ask me has a purpose, yet we talk here just as chance acquaintances might—I, a girl whom you rather like the look of—you do like the look of me, don't you, Mr. Crawshay?"
Crawshay had no need to be subtle. His eyes and tone betrayed his admiration.
"I have thoroughly disliked you ever since you were too clever for me inNew York," he confessed, "and I have been in love with you all the time."
"And you," she continued, with a little gleam of appreciation in her eyes, "are a very pleasant-looking, smart, agreeable Englishman, who looks as though he knew almost enough to ask a poor girl out to dinner."
Crawshay glanced at his wrist watch.
"It is you who have the science of detection," he declared. "You have read my thoughts. Do you wish to change your clothes first, or shall we turn in at a grill room?"
She rose promptly to her feet.
"I'm all for the glad rags," she insisted. "I bought a heap of clothes in Bond Street this afternoon, and I don't know how many chances I shall have of wearing them. I am a quick dresser, and I shan't keep you more than a quarter of an hour. But just one moment first."
Crawshay stood attentively by her side.
"I am at your service," he murmured.
"It's all in the game," she went on, "for you to take me out to dinner, of course, but I guess I needn't tell you that there's nothing doing in the information way. You've fixed it up in your mind, I dare say, that I am mad with Jocelyn Thew. I may be or I may not, but that doesn't make me any the more likely to come in on your side of the game."
Mr. Crawshay's gesture was entirely convincing.
"My dear Miss Sharey," he said softly, "I am going to take a holiday. Business is one thing and pleasure is another. For this evening I am going to put business out of my mind. The sentiment at which I hinted a few moments ago, has, I can assure you, a very real existence."
"Hinted?" she laughed. "Guess there wasn't much hint about it. You said you were in love with me."
"I am," Crawshay sighed.
Her eyes danced joyously.
"You shall tell me all about it over dinner," she declared. "I've got a peach of a black gown—you won't mind if I am twenty minutes?"
"I shall mind every moment that you are away," Crawshay replied, "but I can pass the time. I will telephone and have a cocktail."
She leaned towards him.
"I can guess whom you are going to telephone to."
"Perhaps—but not what I am going to say."
"You are going to telephone to that chap with the dark moustache—Brightman, isn't it? I can hear you on the wire. 'Say, boys,' you'll begin, 'I'm on to a good thing! Everything's looking lovely. I'm taking little Nora Sharey, of Fourteenth Street, out to dine—girl who came over to Europe after Jocelyn Thew, you know. Good business, eh?'"
Crawshay laughed tolerantly. The girl's humour pleased him.
"You are wrong," he declared. "If I told them that, they'd expect something from me which I know I shan't get. You are right about the person, though. I am going to telephone to Brightman."
"What are you going to say?" she challenged him.
"I am just going to tell him," Crawshay confided, "that Jocelyn Thew is dining with Miss Beverley and her brother, more red roses and a corner table in the restaurant, and—"
"Well, what else?"
Crawshay hesitated.
"Perhaps," he said, "if I went on I might put just one card too many on the table, eh?"
"We'll let it go at that, then," she decided. "After all, you know, I am not coming exactly like a lamb to the slaughter. There are a few things you'd like to get to know from me about Jocelyn Thew, but there are also a few things I should like to worm out of you. We'll see which wins. And, Mr. Crawshay."
"Miss Sharey?" he murmured, bending down to her as he held the door open.
"I don't mind confessing that it depends a great deal upon what brand of champagne you fancy."
"Mum cordon rouge?" he suggested.
She made a little grimace as she turned away.
"I am rather beginning to fancy your chance," she declared.
Crawshay, about half an hour later, piloted his companion to the table which he had engaged in the restaurant with all thesavoir faireof a redoubtable man about town. She was, in her way, an exceedingly striking figure in a black satin gown on which was enscrolled one immense cluster of flowers. Her neck and arms, very fully visible, were irreproachable. Her blue-black hair, simply arranged but magnificent, triumphed over the fashions of the coiffeur. The transition from Fourteenth Street to her present surroundings seemed to have been accomplished without the slightest hitch. She leaned forward to smell the great cluster of white roses which he had ordered in from the adjoining florist's.
"The one flower I love," she sighed. "I always fall for white roses."
Crawshay's eyes twinkled as he took his place.
"Do you remember your English history?" he asked. "This is perhaps destined to become a battle of red and white roses—red roses at Claridge's and white roses here."
"Which won—in history?" she asked indifferently.
"That I won't tell you," he said, "in case you should be superstitious. At the same time, I am bound to confess that if we could both of us hear exactly what Jocelyn Thew is saying to-night across those red roses, I think perhaps that I should back the House of York."
"So that's the stunt, is it?" she remarked coolly. "You want to make me jealous of Katharine Beverley?"
"The cleverest and hardest men in the world," Crawshay observed, "generally meet with their Waterloo at the hands of your sex. So far as I am concerned, I am myself in distress. I am jealous of Jocelyn Thew."
"You're bearing up!"
"I am bearing up," Crawshay rejoined, "because I am hoping that with kindness and consideration, and with opportunity to prove to you what a domestic and faithful person I am, you will perceive that of the two men I am the more worthy."
"Think something of yourself, don't you?" she observed.
"I have cultivated this confidence," he told her. "In my younger days I was over-diffident."
"Guess you're older than I thought you, then."
"I am thirty-seven years old," he declared, "and I was well brought up."
"Jocelyn Thew," she said reflectively, "is forty."
"I did not bring you here," he declared, "to discuss the age of my unworthy rival. I brought you to tell me whether you consider that thisLobster Americainereminds you at all of Delmonico's, and to prove to you that we can, if we put our minds to it and speak plain and simple words to thesommelier, serve our champagne as iced even as you like it."
Nora was not wanting in appreciation.
"It's the best thing I've had to eat since I left New York, and for some time before that," she assured him. "There hasn't been much Delmonico's for me during the last few months. Too many of your lot poking about Fourteenth Street."
He nodded.
"After all," he said, "that was bound to come to an end when America declared war. You people did the only wise thing—brother to San Francisco, eh, your father to Chicago, and you over here?"
"You do know things," she laughed.
"I am a perfect dictionary as to your movements," he assured her.
"Have you anything to do with the fact that my rooms have been searched by the police?" she asked abruptly.
"Indirectly I fear so," he confessed. "You see, up to the present we haven't the least idea as to what has become of all those documents and plans which Mr. Jocelyn Thew so very cleverly brought over to this country."
"Don't know where he's tucked them away, eh?" she enquired.
"That's a fact," Crawshay confessed. "We discovered, a trifle too late, how they were brought over, but what has become of them since Jocelyn Thew's arrival in London we do not know. Every one concerned has been searched, no deposit has been made at any hotel or in any of the ordinary places where one might conceal securities. They have momentarily vanished."
The girl's eyes twinkled.
"Well," she exclaimed, "he does put it over you, doesn't he? I wonder whether you think that I am going to be any use to you—that you'll trap Jocelyn Thew through me?"
"Not now," he answered. "I used to think so once."
"Why have you changed your mind?"
"Because," he told her bluntly, "I used once to think that you and he cared for one another."
"And now?"
"I have changed my mind," he admitted. "You know him so well that I need not remind you that where women are concerned he seems to have shown few signs of weakness. Personally, I have a theory that the time has come when he is likely to go the way of all other men."
She leaned across the table. Those wonderful brown eyes of hers were lit with an indescribable interest. Crawshay for a moment lost the thread of his thoughts. They were certainly the most beautiful eyes he had ever looked into.
"You think there is anything between those two—Katharine Beverley and him?"
"The consideration of that point," Crawshay continued, resuming his usual manner, "although it lies off the track of my present investigation, presents some points of interest. She can be of no further use to him in his present scheme. She certainly would not aid him in the concealment of any of his spoils, nor could she become an intermediary in forwarding them to their destination. Yet he has sent her roses every day she has been in England, and dined with her two nights following. You, who know him better than I do, will agree that such a course is unusual with him."
"But Dick Beverley is with them to-night, you told me," she reminded him.
"That scarcely alters the situation," Crawshay pointed out, "because his coming was quite unexpected. If anything, it rather strengthens my point of view. Beverley is very much a young man of the world, and he probably knows Jocelyn Thew's reputation. He certainly would not consent to meet him in this friendly fashion, in company with his sister, unless the latter insisted."
"She doesn't need to insist," Nora said, watching the champagne poured into her glass. "Unless you're kidding me, you don't seem to be able to see much further than your nose. Katharine Beverley didn't come across the Atlantic for her health, and Dick Beverley didn't join that little dinner party for nothing to-night. They both of them did as they were told, and they had to do it."
"This, I must confess," Crawshay murmured, smoothly and mendaciously, "puzzles me. Your idea is, then, that Jocelyn Thew has some hold over them?"
She laughed at him a little contemptuously.
"You are not going to make me believe," she said, "that you are not wise about that. It isn't clever, you know, to treat me as a simpleton."
"I am afraid," he confessed humbly, "that it is I who am the simpleton. You think, then, that the red roses are more emblematic of warfare than of love?"
Nora shrugged her shoulders and was silent for several moments. Her companion changed the subject abruptly, pointed out to her several theatrical celebrities, told her an entertaining story, and talked nonsense until the smile came back to her lips. It was Nora herself who returned to the subject of the Beverleys, reopening it with a certain abruptness which showed that it had never been far from her thoughts.
"See here, Mr. Crawshay," she said, "you seem to me to be wasting a lot of time worrying round a subject, when I don't know whether a straightforward question wouldn't clear it up for you. If you want to know what there is between those three, Jocelyn Thew and the two Beverleys, I don't know that I mind telling you. It's probably what you asked me to dine with you for, anyway."
"My dear Miss Sharey!" Crawshay protested, with genuine earnestness. "I can assure you that I had only one object in asking you to spend the evening with me."
She smiled at him over the glass which she had just raised to her lips.
"And that?"
"The pleasure of talking to you—of being with you."
"You're easily satisfied."
"Perhaps not so easily as I seem," he whispered, leaning a little forward in his place. "If only I were sure that you were not in love with Jocelyn Thew!"
"If you think that I am," she observed, "why are you always slinging thatBeverley girl at me?"
"Perhaps," he said coolly, "to make you jealous. All's fair in love and war, you know."
"I see. Then what you really want is to make love to me yourself? I'm sitting here and taking notice. Go right ahead."
Crawshay let himself go for a few moments, and his companion listened to him approvingly.
"It sounds quite like the real thing," she sighed, "but I never trust you Englishmen. You seem to acquire the habit of talking love to us girls just as easily as you drink a cocktail. You know that if I were to put my little hand in yours this moment across the table, you wouldn't know what to do with it."
"Try me," Crawshay begged.
She held it out—a long, rather thin, capable woman's hand, manicured a few hours ago in the latest fashion, but ringless. Crawshay promptly raised it to his lips. She snatched it away, half amused, half vexed, and glanced furtively around.
"If you did that in an American restaurant," she told him, "you'd stand some chance of getting yourself laughed at."
"It's quite the custom over here and on the Continent," he assured her equably. "It means—well, just as much as you want it to mean."
She sighed and looked at her fingers reflectively.
"What you'd like me to tell you, then," she suggested, raising her eyes and looking at him thoughtfully, "is that I've never wasted a thought on Jocelyn Thew, but that Mr. Reginald Crawshay is it with a capital 'I'?"
"It would make me very happy," he assured her with much conviction.
She laughed at him very softly. Little sparks seemed to flash from her eyes, and her teeth were wonderful.
"You're very nice, anyway," she declared, "although I am not sure that I believe in you as much as I'd like to. I'll just tell you as much as I know. It really doesn't amount to anything. It was just after Jocelyn Thew had come back from Nicaragua and Dick Beverley was having a flare-up of his own in New York. They came together, those two, when Dick was in a tight corner. I don't know the story, but I know that Jocelyn Thew played the white man. Dick Beverley owes him perhaps his life, perhaps only his liberty, and his sister knows it. That's how those three stand to one another."
"I ought to have puzzled that out myself," Crawshay said humbly.
"I am not so sure," she retorted drily, "that you didn't, long ago."
"Surmises are of very little interest by the side of facts," he reminded her. "I like to have something solid to build upon."
She smiled at him appreciatively.
"If I were a sentimental sort of girl," she declared, "I could take a fancy to you, Mr. Crawshay."
"Now you're laughing at me," he protested. "However, I'm going right on with it and then we will dismiss all serious subjects. Miss Beverley has certainly quit herself of any obligation to Jocelyn Thew. Richard Beverley is no longer free. Besides, he has only a couple of days in England, so there's very little chance of his being of use. Yet," he continued impressively, "I happen to know that every hour just now is of the greatest importance to Jocelyn Thew. Why does he spend another entire evening with these two?"
"Say, which of us is the detective—you or me?" she demanded.
"Professionally, I suppose I am," he admitted. "Just now, however, I consider myself as indulging in the relaxation of private life."
She leaned across the table towards him, her chin supported by her clenched hands.
"Then relax all you want to," she begged, with a smile of invitation."We'll drop the other stunt, if you don't mind. And please remember, thoughI've never enjoyed a dinner more in my life, that we don't want to be toolate for the Empire."
Crawshay returned to his rooms about one o'clock the next morning, with his hat a little on the back of his head, and wearing, very much against his prejudice, a white rose in his buttonhole. Brightman, who was awaiting him there, looked up eagerly at his entrance.
"Any luck, Mr. Crawshay?"
Crawshay laid his hat and coat upon the table and mixed himself a whisky and soda.
"I am not sure," he replied thoughtfully. "Are you any good at English history, Brightman?"
"I won an exhibition in my younger days," the detective replied. "I used to consider myself rather great on history."
"Who won the Wars of the Roses?"
"The Lancastrians, of course."
Crawshay nodded.
"They were the chaps with the red roses, weren't they?" he observed."Brightman, I fancy we are going to reverse that. I am laying five to onethat I've found out how Jocelyn Thew counts on getting his spoils intoGermany."
The dinner of the red roses, as though in emulation of its rival entertainment, seemed on its way to complete success. Jocelyn Thew, from whose manner there seemed to have departed much of the austerity of the previous evening, had never been a more brilliant companion. He, who spoke so seldom of his own doings, told story after story of his wanderings in distant countries, until even Katharine lost her fears of the situation and abandoned herself to the enjoyment of the moment. His tone was kindlier and his manner more natural. He spoke with regret of Richard Beverley's departure in a couple of days, and only once did he hint at anything in the least disturbing.
"Wonderful feat, that of you flying men," he remarked, "dropping ten thousand copies of Wilson's speech over the German lines. I am not sure that it isn't rather a dangerous precedent, though."
"Why dangerous?" Katharine enquired.
"Because," he answered coolly, "it might suggest a possible means of communication with Germany to a person, say, like myself."
"But you are not a flying man," Katharine reminded him.
He smiled.
"It would not be necessary," he observed, "for me to be my own messenger."
There was a brief and rather a blank silence. The shadow of a new fear had arisen in Katharine's heart. The brother and sister exchanged quick glances.
"I believe I am right," their host went on, a few minutes later, "in presuming that you have told Richard here the details of our little adventure upon theCity of Boston?"
"I have told him everything," Katharine acknowledged. "You don't mind that, do you? I felt that I had to."
"You were quite right," Jocelyn Thew assented. "There is no reason for you to keep anything secret from Richard."
The young man was conscious of a sudden recrudescence of anger, the flaming up again of his first resentment.
"The whole thing was a rotten business, Thew," he declared. "I should never have resented your making use of me in any way you wished, but to make a tool of Katharine—"
"My dear fellow," Jocelyn Thew interrupted, smoothly but with a dangerous glitter in his eyes, "please don't go on. I have an idea that you were going to say something offensive. Better not. Your sister came to no real harm. She never ran any real risk."
"It depends upon the way you look at these things," the young man replied gloomily. "Katharine tells me that she is watched at her hotel day and night, and that she has come under the suspicion of the Government for being concerned in this affair."
"That really isn't of much account," the other assured him. "You yourself," he went on, "came very nearly under suspicion once for something infinitely more serious."
It was a chill note in the warmth of their festivities. Katharine glanced reproachfully at her host, and he seemed to realise at once his lapse.
"Forgive me, both of you," he begged. "I fear that I am a little irritable to-night. This constant espionage gets on one's nerves. Look at them all around us,—Crawshay in the corner, trying his best to get something incriminating out of Nora Sharey; Brightman smoking a cigar out there, with his eyes wandering all the time through the glass screen towards this table; and the young man who seemed to haunt your hotel, Miss Beverley—Henshaw I believe his name is—you see him dining there with his back turned ostentatiously towards us and a little pocket mirror by his side. There are three pairs of eyes that scarcely ever leave us. I don't know whether they expect me to produce my spoils from my pocket and lay them upon the table, or whether one of them is a student of the lip language and hopes to learn the secrets of our conversation. Bah! They are very stupid, this professional potpourri of secret-service agents and detectives. Can't you hear them, how they will whisper in the lobby after we have left? 'Jocelyn Thew is entertaining a young Flying Corps man on leave from the front, the brother of Miss Beverley, who has already helped him. What does that mean?' Then they will put their fingers to their noses and you, too, will probably be watched, Dick. They will congratulate themselves upon possessing the subtlety of the Devil. They will see through my scheme. They will say—'This young man is to drop the documents behind the German lines!' Don't be alarmed, Richard, if you find a secret service man in your bedroom when you get home to-night."
Katharine laughed almost joyously.
"Then you're not going to ask Dick to do anything of that sort?" she demanded, her tone indicating an immense relief.
He smiled.
"I am not going to ask your brother to do anything which is so palpably obvious," he replied. "His help I am certainly going to engage, but in a manner which is very unlikely to bring trouble upon him. I promise you that."
She suddenly leaned across the table. The cloud had passed from her features, the dull weight from her heart. Her eyes were more eloquent even than her tremulous lips.
"Mr. Thew," she said, "do you know that I have always had one conviction about you, and that is that all these strange adventures in which you have taken part—some of them, as you yourself have acknowledged, more creditable than others—you have entered into chiefly from that spirit of adventure, just the spirit in which Dick here," she added with a little shiver, "made his mistake. Why can't you satisfy that part of your nature as Dick is doing? This war, upon which we Americans looked so coldly at first, has become almost a holy war, a twentieth-century crusade. Why don't you join one of these irregular forces and fight?"
Then they both witnessed what they had never before seen in Jocelyn Thew. They saw his eyes blaze with a sudden concentrated fury. They saw his lips part and something that was almost a snarl transform and disfigure his mouth.
"Fight for England?" he exclaimed bitterly. "I would sooner cut off my right hand!"
His words left them at first speechless. He, too, after his little outburst seemed shaken, lacking in his usualsangfroid. It was Katharine who first recovered herself.
"But you are English?" she protested wonderingly.
"Am I?" he replied. "Will you forgive me if I beg you to change the subject?"
The subject was effectually changed for them by the advent of some of Richard Beverley's brothers in arms. It was some time before they passed on. Then a little note almost of tragedy concluded the feast. A tall and elderly man, gaunt, with sunken cheeks, silver-white hair, complexion curiously waxen, and big, dark eyes, left the table where he had been sitting with a few Americans and came over towards them. His advance was measured, almost abnormally slow. His manner would have been melodramatic but for its intense earnestness. He stood at their table for a few seconds before speaking, his eyes fixed upon Jocelyn Thew's in a curious, almost unnatural stare.
"You will forgive me," he said. "I must be speaking to Sir Denis Cathley?"
Neither of the two young people, who were filled with wonder at the strange appearance of the newcomer, noticed Jocelyn Thew's sudden grip of the tablecloth, the tightening of his frame, the ominous contraction of his eyebrows as for a moment he sat there speechless. Then he was himself again. He shook his head courteously.
"I am afraid," he replied, "that you must be making some mistake. My name is Jocelyn Thew."
"And mine," the stranger announced, "is Michael Dilwyn. Is that name known to you?"
"Perfectly well," Jocelyn Thew acknowledged. "I was present at the production of your last play in New York. I have since read with much regret," he went on courteously, "of the losses you have sustained."
The old man's wonderful eyes flashed for a moment.
"They are losses I am proud to endure, sir," he said. "But I did not come to speak of myself. I came to speak to Sir Denis Cathley."
Jocelyn Thew shook his head.
"It is a likeness which deceives you," he declared.
"A likeness!" the other repeated. "Nine weeks ago I stood in a ruined mansion—so dilapidated, in fact, that one corner of it is open to the skies. I listened to the roar of the Atlantic as I heard it in the same place fifty years ago. A herdsman and his wife, perhaps a girl or two, live somewhere in the back quarters. The only apartment in any sort of preservation is the one sometimes called the picture gallery and sometimes the banqueting hall. You should visit this ruined mansion, sir. You should visit it before you give me the lie when I call you Sir Denis Cathley."
Jocelyn Thew's hand for a moment shielded part of his face, as though he found the electric light a little strong. From behind the shelter of his palm his eyes met the eyes of his visitor. The latter suddenly turned and bowed to Katharine.
"You will forgive an old man," he begged courteously, "who has seen much trouble lately, for his ill manners. Perhaps your friend here, your friend whose name is not Sir Denis Cathley, can explain to you why I felt some emotion at the sight of so wonderful a likeness."
He bowed, murmured some broken words in reply to Katharine's kindly little speech, and moved away. Jocelyn Thew's eyes watched him with a curious softness.
"Yes," he acknowledged, "I can tell you why, if he really saw a likeness in me to the person he spoke of, it might remind him of strange things. You know him by name, of course—Michael Dilwyn?"
"He wrote the wonderful Sinn Fein play, 'The New Green,' didn't he?" Katharine asked eagerly. "I heard you mention it to him. My aunt and I were there at the first night."
"He wrote that and some more wonderful poetry. He has spent more than half his life working for the cause of Ireland. He was the father and patriarch of the last rising. One of his sons was shot at Dublin."
"And who is Sir Denis Cathley?"
"The Cathleys are another so-called revolutionary family," Jocelyn Thew explained. "The late Sir Denis, the father of the man whom he supposed me to be, was Michael Dilwyn's closest friend. They, too, have paid a heavy price for their patriotism or their rebellious instincts, whichever way you choose to look at the matter."