There followed a few days of pleasurable interest to all Englishmen who travelled in the tube and read their halfpenny papers. A great and enlightened Press had already solved the problem of creating the sensational without the aid of facts. This sudden deluge, therefore, of undoubtedly tragical happenings became almost an embarrassment to them. Black headlines, notes of exclamation, the use of superlative adjectives, scarcely met the case. The murder of Mr. Hamilton Fynes was strange enough. Here was an unknown man, holding a small position in his own country,—a man apparently without friends or social position. He travelled over from America, merely a unit amongst the host of other passengers; yet his first action, on arriving at Liverpool, was to make use of privileges which belonged to an altogether different class of person, and culminated in his arrival at Euston in a special train with a dagger driven through his heart! Here was material enough for a least a fortnight of sensations and countersensations, of rumored arrests and strange theories. Yet within the space of twenty-four hours the affair of Mr. Hamilton Fynes had become a small thing, had shrunk almost into insignificance by the side of the other still more dramatic, still more wonderful happening. Somewhere between the Savoy Hotel and Melbourne Square, Kensington, a young American gentleman of great strength, of undoubted position, the nephew of a Minister, and himself secretary to the Ambassador of his country in London, had met with his death in a still more mysterious, still more amazing fashion. He had left the hotel in an ordinary taxicab, which had stopped on the way to pick up no other passenger. He had left the Savoy alone, and he was discovered in Melbourne Square alone. Yet, somewhere between these two points, notwithstanding the fact that the aggressor must have entered the cab either with or without his consent, Mr. Richard Vanderpole, without a struggle, without any cry sufficiently loud to reach the driver or attract the attention of any passer-by, had been strangled to death by a person who had disappeared as though from the face of the earth. The facts seemed almost unbelievable, and yet they were facts. The driver of the taxi knew only that three times during the course of his drive he had been caught in a block and had had to wait for a few seconds—once at the entrance to Trafalgar Square, again at the junction of Haymarket and Pall Mall, and, for a third time, opposite the Hyde Park Hotel. At neither of these halting places had he heard any one enter or leave the taxi. He had heard no summons from his fare, even though a tube, which was in perfect working order, was fixed close to the back of his head. He had known nothing, in fact, until a policeman had stopped him, having caught a glimpse of the ghastly face inside. There was no evidence which served to throw a single gleam of light upon the affair. Mr. Vanderpole had called at the Savoy Hotel upon a travelling American, who had written to the Embassy asking for some advice as to introducing American patents into Great Britain and France. He left there to meet his chief, who was dining down in Kensington, with the intention of returning at once to join the Duchess of Devenham’s theatre party. He was in no manner of trouble. It was not suggested that any one had any cause for enmity against him. Yet this attack upon him must have been carefully planned and carried out by a person of great strength and wonderful nerve. The newspaper-reading public in London love their thrills, and they had one here which needed no artificial embellishments from the pens of those trained in an atmosphere of imagination. The simple truth was, in itself, horrifying. There was scarcely a man or woman who drove in a taxicab about the west end of London during the next few days without a little thrill of emotion.
The murder of Mr. Richard Vanderpole took place on a Thursday night. On Monday morning a gentleman of middle age, fashionably but quietly dressed, wearing a flower in his buttonhole, patent boots, and a silk hat which he had carefully deposited upon the floor, was sitting closeted with Miss Penelope Morse. It was obvious that that young lady did not altogether appreciate the honor done to her by a visit from so distinguished a person as Inspector Jacks!
“I am sorry,” he said, “that you should find my visit in the least offensive, Miss Morse. I have approached you, so far as possible, as an ordinary visitor, and no one connected with your household can have any idea as to my identity or the nature of my business. I have done this out of consideration to your feelings. At the same time I have my duty to perform and it must be done.”
“What I cannot understand,” Penelope said coldly, “is why you should bother me about your duty. When I saw you at the Carlton Hotel, I told you exactly how much I knew of Mr. Hamilton Fynes.”
“My dear young lady,” Inspector Jacks said, “I will not ask for your sympathy, for I am afraid I should ask in vain; but we are just now, we people at Scotland Yard, up against one of the most extraordinary problems which have ever been put before us. We have had two murders occurring in two days, which have this much, at least, in common—that they have been the work of so accomplished a criminal that at the present moment, although I should not like to tell every one as much, we have not in either case the ghost of a clue.”
“That sounds very stupid of you,” Penelope remarked, “but I still ask—”
“Don’t ask for a minute or two,” the Inspector interrupted. “I think I remarked just now that these two crimes had one thing in common, and that was the fact that they had both been perpetrated by a criminal of unusual accomplishments. They also have one other point of similitude.”
“What is that?” Penelope asked.
“The victim in both cases was an American,” the Inspector said.
Penelope sat very still. She felt the steely eyes of the man who had chosen his seat so carefully, fixed upon her face.
“You do not connect the two affairs in any way?” she asked.
“That is what we are asking ourselves,” Mr. Jacks continued. “In the absence of any definite clue, coincidences such as this are always interesting. In this case, as it happens, we can take them even a little further. We find that you, for instance, Miss Penelope Morse, a young American lady, celebrated for her wit and accomplishments, and well known in London society, were to have lunched with Mr. Hamilton Fynes on the day when he made his tragical arrival in London; we find too, curiously enough, that you were one of the party with whom Mr. Richard Vanderpole was to have dined and gone to the theatre on the night of his decease.”
Penelope shivered, and half closed her eyes.
“Don’t you think,” she said, “that the shock of this coincidence, as you call it, has been quite sufficient, without having you come here to remind me of it?”
“Madam,” Mr. Jacks said, “I have not come here to gratify any personal curiosity. I have come here in the cause of justice. You should find me a welcome visitor, for both these men who have lost their lives were friends of yours.”
“I should be very sorry indeed,” Penelope answered, “to stand in the way of justice. No one can hope more fervently than I do that the perpetrator of these deeds will be found and punished. But what I cannot understand is your coming here and reopening the subject with me. I tell you again that I have no possible information for you.”
“Perhaps not,” the Inspector declared, “but, on the other hand, there are certain questions which you can answer me,—answer them, I mean, not grudgingly and as though in duty bound,—answer them intelligently, and with some apprehension of the things which lie behind.”
“And what is the thing that lies behind them?” she asked.
“A theory, madam,” the Inspector answered,—“no more. But in this case, unfortunately, we have not passed the stage of theories. My theory, at the present moment, is that the murderer of these two men was the same person.”
“You have evidence to that effect,” she said, suddenly surprised to find that her voice had sunk to a whisper.
“Very little,” Mr. Jacks admitted; “but, you see, in the case of theories one must build them brick by brick. Then if, after all, as we reach the end, the foundation was false, well, we must watch them collapse and start again.”
“Supposing we leave these generalities,” Penelope remarked, “and get on with those questions which you wish to ask me. My aunt, as you may have heard, is an invalid, and although she seldom leaves her room, this is one of the afternoons when she sometimes sits here for a short time. I should not care to have her find you.”
The Inspector leaned back in his chair. It was a very pleasant drawing room, looking out upon the Park. A little French clock, a masterpiece of workmanship, was ticking gayly upon the mantelpiece. Two toy Pomeranians were half hidden in the great rug. The walls were of light blue, soft, yet full of color, and the carpet, of some plain material, was of the same shade. The perfume of flowers—the faint sweetness of mimosa and the sicklier fragrance of hyacinths—seemed almost overwhelming, for the fire was warm and the windows closed. By the side of Penelope’s chair were a new novel and a couple of illustrated papers, and Mr. Jacks noticed that although a paper cutter was lying by their side the leaves of all were uncut.
“These questions,” he said, “may seem to you irrelevant, yet please answer them if you can. Mr. Hamilton Fynes, for instance,—was he, to your knowledge, acquainted with Mr. Richard Vanderpole?”
“I have never heard them speak of one another,” Penelope answered. “I should think it very unlikely.”
“You have no knowledge of any common pursuit or interest in life which the two men may have shared?” the Inspector asked. “A hobby, for instance,—a collection of postage stamps, china, any common aim of any sort?”
She shook her head.
“I knew little of Mr. Fynes’ tastes. Dicky—I mean Mr. Vanderpole—had none at all except an enthusiasm for his profession and a love of polo.”
“His profession,” the Inspector repeated. “Mr. Vanderpole was attached to the American Embassy, was he not?”
“I believe so,” Penelope answered.
“Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” the Inspector continued, “might almost have been said to have followed the same occupation.”
“Surely not!” Penelope objected. “I always understood that Mr. Fynes was employed in a Government office at Washington,—something to do with the Customs, I thought, or forest duties.”
Mr. Jacks nodded thoughtfully.
“I am not aware, as yet,” he said, “of the precise nature of Mr. Fynes’ occupation. I only knew that it was, in some shape or form, Government work.”
“You know as much about it,” she answered, “as I do.”
“We have sent,” the Inspector continued smoothly, “a special man out to Washington to make all inquiries that are possible on the spot, and incidentally, to go through the effects of the deceased, with a view to tracing any complications in which he may have been involved in this country.”
Penelope opened her lips, but closed them again.
“I am not, however,” the Inspector continued, “very sanguine of success. In the case of Mr. Vanderpole, for instance, there could have been nothing of the sort. He was too young, altogether too much of a boy, to have had enemies so bitterly disposed towards him. There is another explanation somewhere, I feel convinced, at the root of the matter.”
“You do not believe, then,” asked Penelope, “that robbery was really the motive?”
“Not ordinary robbery,” Mr. Jacks answered. “A man who was capable of these two crimes is capable of easier and greater things. I mean,” he explained, “that he could have attempted enterprises of a far more remunerative character, with a prospect of complete success.”
“Will you forgive me,” she said, “if I ask you to go on with your questions, providing you have any more to ask me? Notwithstanding the excellence of your disguise,” she remarked with a faint curl of the lips, “I might find it somewhat difficult to explain your presence if my aunt or any visitors should come in.”
“I am sorry, Miss Morse,” the Inspector said quietly, “to find you so unsympathetic. Had I found you differently disposed, I was going to ask you to put yourself in my place. I was going to ask you to look at these two tragedies from my point of view and from your own at the same time, and I was going to ask you whether any possible motive suggested itself to you, any possible person or cause, which might be benefited by the removal of these two men.”
“If you think, Mr. Jacks,” Penelope said, “that I am keeping anything from you, you are very much mistaken. Such sympathy as I have would certainly be with those who are attempting to bring to justice the perpetrator of such unmentionable crimes. What I object to is the unpleasantness of being associated with your inquiries when I am absolutely unable to give you the least help, or to supply you with any information which is not equally attainable to you.”
“As, for instance?” the Inspector asked.
“You are a detective,” Penelope said coldly. “You do not need me to point out certain things to you. Mr. Hamilton Fynes was robbed and murdered—an American citizen on his way to London. Mr. Richard Vanderpole is also murdered, after a call upon Mr. James B. Coulson, the only acquaintance whom Mr. Fynes is known to have possessed in this country. Did Mr. Fynes share secrets with Mr. Coulson? If so, did Mr. Coulson pass them on to Mr. Vanderpole, and for that reason did Mr. Vanderpole meet with the same death, at the same hands, as had befallen Mr. Fynes?”
Inspector Jacks moved his head thoughtfully.
“It is admirably put,” he assented, “and to continue?”
“It is not my place to make suggestions to you,” Penelope said. “If you are able to connect Mr. Fynes with the American Government, you arrive at the possibility of these murders having been committed for some political end. I presume you read your newspapers?”
Inspector Jacks smiled, picked up his hat and bowed, while Penelope, with a sigh of relief, moved over to the bell.
“My dear young lady,” he said, “you do not understand how important even the point of view of another person is to a man who is struggling to build up a theory. Whether you have helped me as much as you could,” he added, looking her in the face, “you only can tell, but you have certainly helped me a little.”
The footman had entered. The Inspector turned to follow him. Penelope remained as she had been standing, the hand which had touched the bell fallen to her side, her eyes fixed upon him with a new light stirring their quiet depths.
“One moment, Morton,” she said. “Wait outside. Mr. Jacks,” she added, as the door closed, “what do you mean? What can I have told you? How can I have helped you?”
The Inspector stood very still for a brief space of time, very still and very silent. His face, too, was quite expressionless. Yet his tone, when he spoke, seemed to have taken to itself a note of sternness.
“If you had chosen,” he said slowly, “to have become my ally in this matter, to have ranged yourself altogether on the side of the law, my answer would have been ready enough. What you have told me, however, you have told me against your will and not in actual words. You have told me in such a way, too,” he added, “that it is impossible for me to doubt your intention to mislead me. I am forced to conclude that we stand on opposite sides of the way. I shall not trouble you any more, Miss Morse.”
He turned to the door. Penelope remained motionless for several moments, listening to his retreating footsteps.
Mr. James B. Coulson settled down to live what was, to all appearance, a very inoffensive and ordinary life. He rose a little earlier than was customary for an Englishman of business of his own standing, but he made up for this by a somewhat prolonged visit to the barber, a breakfast which bespoke an unimpaired digestion, and a cigar of more than ordinary length over his newspaper. At about eleven o’clock he went down to the city, and returned sometimes to luncheon, sometimes at varying hours, never later, however, than four or five o’clock. From that time until seven, he was generally to be found in the American bar, meeting old friends or making new ones.
On the sixth day of his stay at the Savoy Hotel the waiter who looked after the bar smoking room accosted him as he entered at his usual time, a little after half past four.
“There’s a gentleman here, Mr. Coulson, been asking after you,” he announced. “I told him that you generally came in about this time. You’ll find him sitting over there.”
Mr. Coulson glanced in the direction indicated. It was Mr. Jacks who awaited him in the cushioned easy chair. For a single moment, perhaps, his lips tightened and the light of battle flashed in his face. Then he crossed the room apparently himself again,—an undistinguished, perfectly natural figure.
“It’s Mr. Jacks, isn’t it?” he asked, holding out his hand. “I thought I recognized you.”
The Inspector rose to his feet.
“I am sorry to trouble you again, Mr. Coulson,” he said, “but if you could spare me just a minute or two, I should be very much obliged.”
Mr. Coulson laughed pleasantly.
“You can have all you want of me from now till midnight,” he declared. “My business doesn’t take very long, and I can only see the people I want to see in the middle of the day. After that, I don’t mind telling you that I find time hangs a bit on my hands. Try one of these,” he added, producing a cigar case.
The Inspector thanked him and helped himself. Mr. Coulson summoned the waiter.
“Highball for me,” he directed. “What’s yours, Mr. Jacks?”
“Thank you very much,” the Inspector said. “I will take a little Scotch whiskey and soda.”
The two men sat down. The corner was a retired one, and there was no one within earshot.
“Say, are you still on this Hamilton Fynes business?” Mr. Coulson asked.
“Partly,” the Inspector replied.
“You know, I’m not making reflections,” Mr. Coulson said, sticking his cigar in a corner of his mouth and leaning back in a comfortable attitude, “but it does seem to me that you are none too rapid on this side in clearing up these matters. Why, a little affair of that sort wouldn’t take the police twenty minutes in New York. We have a big city, full of alien quarters, full of hiding places, and chock full of criminals, but our police catch em, all the same. There’s no one going to commit murder in the streets of New York without finding himself in the Tombs before he’s a week older. No offence, Mr. Jacks.”
“I am not taking any, Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector answered. “I must admit that there’s a great deal of truth in what you say. It is rather a reflection upon us that we have not as yet even made an arrest, but I think you will also admit that the circumstances of those murders were exceedingly curious.”
Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar.
“Well, as to that,” he said, “and if we are to judge only by what we read in the papers, they are curious, without a doubt. But I am not supposing for one moment that you fellows at Scotland Yard don’t know more than you’ve let on to the newspapers. You keep your discoveries out of the Press over here, and a good job, too, but you wouldn’t persuade me that you haven’t some very distinct theory as to how that crime was worked, and the sort of person who did it. Eh, Mr. Jacks?”
“We are perhaps not quite so ignorant as we seem,” the Inspector answered, “and of course you are right when you say that we have a few more facts to go by than have appeared in the newspapers. Still, the affair is an extremely puzzling one,—as puzzling, in its way,” Mr. Jacks continued, “as the murder on the very next evening of this young American gentleman.”
Mr. Coulson nodded sympathetically. The drinks were brought, and he raised his glass to his guest.
“Here’s luck!” he said—“luck to you with your game of human chess, and luck to me with my woollen machinery patents! You were speaking of that second murder,” he remarked, setting down his glass. “I haven’t noticed the papers much this morning. Has any arrest been made yet?”
“Not yet,” the Inspector admitted. “To tell you the truth, we find it almost as puzzling an affair as the one in which Mr. Hamilton Fynes was concerned.”
Mr. Coulson nodded. He seemed content, at this stage in their conversation, to assume the role of listener.
“You read the particulars of the murder of Mr. Vanderpole, I suppose?” the Inspector asked.
“Every word,” Mr. Coulson answered. “Most interesting thing I’ve seen in an English newspaper since I landed. Didn’t sound like London somehow. Gray old law-abiding place, my partner always calls it.”
“I am going to be quite frank with you, Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector continued. “I am going to tell you exactly why I have come to see you again tonight.”
“Why, that’s good,” Mr. Coulson declared. “I like to know everything a man’s got in his mind.”
“I have come to you,” the Inspector said, “because, by a somewhat curious coincidence, I find that, besides your slight acquaintance with and knowledge of Mr. Hamilton Fynes, you were also acquainted with this Mr. Richard Vanderpole,—that you were,” he continued, knocking the ash off his cigar and speaking a little more slowly, “the last person, except the driver of the taxicab, to have seen him alive.”
Mr. Coulson turned slowly around and faced his companion.
“Now, how the devil do you know that?” he asked.
The Inspector smiled tolerantly.
“Well,” he said, “that is very simple. The taxicab started from here. Mr. Vanderpole had been visiting some one in the hotel. There was not the slightest difficulty in ascertaining that the person for whom he asked, and with whom he spent some twenty minutes in this very room, was Mr. James B. Coulson of New York.”
“Seated on this very couch, sir!” Mr. Coulson declared, striking the arm of it with the flat of his hand,—“seated within a few feet of where you yourself are at this present moment.”
The Inspector nodded.
“Naturally,” he continued, “when I became aware of so singular an occurrence, I felt that I must lose no time in coming and having a few more words with you.”
Mr. Coulson became meditative.
“Upon my word, when you come to think of it,” he said, “it is a coincidence, sure! Two men murdered within twenty-four hours, and I seem to have been the last person who knew them, to speak to either. Tell you what, Mr. Jacks, if this goes on I shall get a bit scared. I think I shall let the London business alone and go on over to Paris.”
The Inspector smiled.
“I fancy your nerves,” he remarked, “are quite strong enough to bear the strain. However, I am sure you will not mind telling me exactly why Mr. Richard Vanderpole, Secretary to the American Embassy here, should have come to see you on Thursday night.”
“Why, that’s easy,” Mr. Coulson replied. “You may have heard of my firm, The Coulson & Bruce Company of Jersey City. I’m at the head of a syndicate that’s controlling some very valuable patents which we want to exploit on this side and in Paris. Now my people don’t exactly know how we stand under this new patent bill of Mr. Lloyd George’s. Accordingly they wrote across to Mr. Blaine-Harvey, putting the matter to him, and asking him to give me his opinion the moment I arrived on this side. You see, it was no use our entering into contracts if we had to build the plant and make the stuff over here. We didn’t stand any earthly show of making it pay that way. Well, Mr. Harvey cabled out that I was just to let him know the moment I landed, and before I opened up any business. Sure enough, I called him up on the telephone, an hour or so after I got here, and this young man came round. I can tell you he was all right, too,—a fine, upstanding young fellow, and as bright as they make em. He brought a written opinion with him as to how the law would affect our proceedings. I’ve got it in my room if you’d care to see it?”
Mr. Jacks listened to his companion’s words with unchanged face.
“If it isn’t troubling you,” he said, “it would be of some interest to me.”
Mr. Coulson rose to his feet.
“You sit right here,” he declared. “I’ll be back in less than five minutes.”
Mr. Coulson was as good as his word. In less than the time mentioned he was seated again by his companion’s side with a square sheet of foolscap spread out upon the round table. The Inspector ran it through hurriedly. The paper was stamped American Embassy,’ and it was the digest of several opinions as to the effect of the new patent law upon the import of articles manufactured under processes controlled by the Coulson & Bruce syndicate. At the end there were a few lines in the Ambassador’s own handwriting, summing up the situation. Mr. Coulson produced another packet of letters and documents.
“If you’ve an hour or so to spare, Mr. Jacks,” he said, “I’d like to go right into this with you, if it would interest you any. It’s my business over here, so naturally I am glad enough of an opportunity to talk it over.”
Mr. Jacks passed back the paper promptly.
“I am extremely obliged to you,” he said. “I am sure I should find it most interesting. Another time I should be very glad indeed to look through those specifications, but just now I have this affair of my own rather on my mind. About this Mr. Richard Vanderpole, Mr. Coulson, then,” he added. “Do I understand that this young man came to you as a complete stranger?”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Coulson answered. “I never saw him before in my life. As decent a young chap as ever I met with, all the same,” he went on, “and comes of a good American stock, too. They tell me there’s going to be an inquest and that I shall be summoned, but I know nothing more than what I’ve told you. If I did, you’d be welcome to it.”
Mr. Jacks leaned back in his chair. Certainly the situation increased in perplexity! The man by his side was talking now of the adaptation of one of his patents to some existing machinery, and Jacks watched him covertly. He considered himself, to some extent, a physiognomist. He told himself it was not possible that this man was playing a part. Mr. James B. Coulson sat there, the absolute incarnation of the genial man of affairs, interested in his business, interested in the great subject of dollar-getting, content with himself and his position,—a person apparently of little imagination, for the shock of this matter concerning which they had been talking had already passed away. He was doing his best to explain with a pencil on the back of an illustrated paper some new system of wool-bleaching.
“Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector said suddenly, “do you know a young lady named Miss Penelope Morse?”
It was here, perhaps, that Mr. Coulson sank a little from the heights of complete success. He repeated the name, and obviously took time to think before he answered.
“Miss Penelope Morse,” the Inspector continued. “She is a young American lady, who lives with an invalid aunt in Park Lane, and who is taken everywhere by the Duchess of Devenham, another aunt, I believe.”
“I suppose I may say that I am acquainted with her,” Mr. Coulson admitted. “She came here the other evening with a young man—Sir Charles Somerfield.”
“Ah!” the Inspector murmured.
“She’d read that interview of mine with the Comet man,” Mr. Coulson said, “and she fancied that perhaps I could tell her something about Hamilton Fynes.”
“First time you’d met her, I suppose?” the Inspector remarked.
“Sure!” Mr. Coulson answered. “As a matter of fact, I know very few of my compatriots over here. I am an American citizen myself, and I haven’t too much sympathy with any one, man or woman, who doesn’t find America good enough for them to live in.”
The Inspector nodded.
“Quite so,” he agreed. “So you hadn’t anything to tell this young lady?”
“Not a thing that she hadn’t read in the Comet,” Mr. Coulson replied. “What brought her into your mind, anyway?”
“Nothing particular,” the Inspector answered carelessly. “Well, Mr. Coulson, I won’t take up any more of your time. I am convinced that you have told me all that you know, and I am afraid that I shall have to look elsewhere to find the loose end of this little tangle.”
“Stay and have another drink,” Mr. Coulson begged. “I’ve nothing to do. There are one or two boys coming in later who’ll like to meet you.”
The Inspector shook his head.
“I must be off,” he said. “I want to get into my office before six o’clock. I dare say I shall be running across you again before you go back.”
He shook hands and turned away. Then Mr. Coulson made what was, perhaps, his second slight mistake.
“Say, Mr. Jacks,” he exclaimed, “what made you mention that young lady’s name, anyway? I’m curious to know.”
The Inspector looked thoughtfully at the end of the fresh cigar which he had just lit.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know that there was anything definite in my mind, only it seems a little strange that you and Miss Penelope Morse should both have been acquainted with the murdered man and that you should have come across one another.”
“Sort of bond between us, eh?” Mr. Coulson replied. “She seemed a very charming young lady. Cut above Fynes, I should think.”
The detective smiled.
“All your American young ladies who come over here are charming,” he said. “Goodbye, Mr. Coulson, and many thanks!”
The Inspector passed out, and the man whom he had come to visit, after a moment’s hesitation, resumed his seat.
“These aren’t American methods,” he muttered to himself. “I don’t understand them. That man Jacks is either a simpleton or he is too cunning for me.”
He crossed to a writing table and scribbled an unnecessary note, addressing it to a firm in the city. Then he rang for a messenger boy and handed it to him for delivery. A few minutes afterwards he strolled out into the hall. The boy was in the act of handing the note to one of the head porters, who carefully copied the address. Mr. Coulson returned to the smoking room, whistling softly to himself.
Mr. Robert Blaine-Harvey, American Ambassador and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to England, was a man of great culture, surprising personal gifts, and with a diplomatic instinct which amounted almost to genius. And yet there were times when he was puzzled. For at least half an hour he had been sitting in his great library, looking across the Park, and trying to make up his mind on a very important matter. It seemed to him that he was face to face with what amounted almost to a crisis in his career. His two years at the Court of St. James had been pleasant and uneventful enough. The small questions which had presented themselves for adjustment between the two countries were, after all, of no particular importance and were easily arranged. The days seemed to have gone by for that over-strained sensitiveness which was continually giving rise to senseless bickerings, when every trilling breeze seemed to fan the smouldering fires of jealousy. The two great English-speaking nations appeared finally to have realized the absolute folly of continual disputes between countries whose destiny and ideals were so completely in accord and whose interests were, in the main, identical. A period of absolute friendliness had ensued. And now there had come this little cloud. It was small enough at present, but Mr. Harvey was not the one to overlook its sinister possibilities. Two citizens of his country had been barbarously murdered within the space of a few hours, one in the heart of the most thickly populated capital in the world, and there was a certain significance attached to this fact which the Ambassador himself and those others at Washington perfectly well realized. He glanced once more at the most recent letter on the top of this pile of correspondence and away again out into the Park. It was a difficult matter, this. His friends at Washington did not cultivate the art of obscurity in the words which they used, and it had been suggested to him in black and white that the murder of these two men, under the particular circumstances existing, was a matter concerning which he should speak very plainly indeed to certain August personages. Mr. Harvey, who was a born diplomatist, understood the difficulties of such a proceeding a good deal more than those who had propounded it.
There was a knock at the door, and a footman entered, ushering in a visitor.
“The young lady whom you were expecting, sir,” he announced discreetly.
Mr. Harvey rose at once to his feet.
“My dear Penelope,” he said, shaking hands with her, “this is charming of you.”
Penelope smiled.
“It seems quite like old times to feel myself at home here once more,” she declared.
Mr. Harvey did not pursue the subject. He was perfectly well aware that Penelope, who had been his first wife’s greatest friend, had never altogether forgiven him for his somewhat brief period of mourning. He drew an easy chair up to the side of his desk and placed a footstool for her.
“I should not have sent for you,” he said, “but I am really and honestly in a dilemma. Do you know that, apart from endless cables, Washington has favored me with one hundred and forty pages of foolscap all about the events of the week before last?”
Penelope shivered a little.
“Poor Dicky!” she murmured, looking away into the fire. “And to think that it was I who sent him to his death!”
Mr. Harvey shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I do not think that you need reproach yourself with that. As a matter of fact, I think that I should have sent Dicky in any case. He is not so well known as the others, or rather he wasn’t associated so closely with the Embassy, and he was constantly at the Savoy on his own account. If I had believed that there was any danger in the enterprise,” he continued, “I should still have sent him. He was as strong as a young Hercules. The hand which twisted that noose around his neck must have been the hand of a magician with fingers of steel.”
Penelope shivered again. Her face showed signs of distress.
“I do not think,” she said, “that I am a nervous person, but I cannot bear to think of it even now.”
“Naturally,” Mr. Harvey answered. “We were all fond of Dicky, and such a thing has never happened, so far as I am aware, in any European country. My own private secretary murdered in broad daylight and with apparent impunity!”
“Murdered—and robbed!” she whispered, looking up at him with a white face.
The frown on the Ambassador’s forehead darkened.
“Not only that,” he declared, “but the secrets of which he was robbed have gone to the one country interested in the knowledge of them.”
“You are sure of that?” she asked hoarsely.
“I am sure of it,” Mr. Harvey answered.
Penelope drew a little breath between her teeth. Her thoughts flashed back to a recent dinner party. The Prince was once more at her side. Almost she could hear his voice—low, clear, and yet with that note of inexpressible, convincing finality. She heard him speak of his country reverently, almost prayerfully; of the sacrifices which true patriotism must always demand. What had been in his mind, she wondered, at the back of his inscrutable eyes, gazing, even at that moment, past the banks of flowers, across the crowded room with all its splendor of light and color, through the walls,—whither! She brushed the thought away. It was absurd, incredible! She was allowing herself to be led away by her old distrust of this man.
“I remarked just now,” Mr. Harvey continued, “that such a thing had never happened, so far as I was aware, in any European country. My own words seem to suggest something to me. These methods are not European. They savor more of the East.”
“I think you had better go on,” she said quietly. “There is something in your mind. I can see that. You have told me so much that you had better tell me the rest.”
“The contents of those despatches,” Mr. Harvey continued, “intrusted in duplicate, as you have doubtless surmised, to Fynes and to Coulson, contained an assurance that the sending of our fleet to the Pacific was in fact, as well as in appearance, an errand of peace. It was a demonstration, pure and simple. Behind it there may have lain, indeed, a masterful purpose, the determination of a great country to affirm her strenuous existence in a manner most likely to impress the nations unused to seeing her in such a role. It became necessary, in view of certain suspicions, for me to be able to prove to the Government here the absolutely pacific nature of our great enterprise. Those despatches contained such proof. And now listen, Penelope. Before the murder of poor Dicky Vanderpole, we know for a fact that a great nation who chooses to consider herself our enemy in Eastern waters was straining every nerve to prepare for war. Today those preparations have slackened. A great loan has been withdrawn in Paris, an invitation cabled to our fleet to visit Yokohama. These things have a plain reading.”
“Plain, indeed,” Penelope assented, and she spoke in a low tone because there was fear in her heart. “Why have you told me about them? They throw a new light upon everything,—an awful light!”
“I have known you,” the Ambassador said quietly, “since you were a baby. Every member of your family has been a friend of mine. You come of a silent race. I know very well that you are a person of discretion. There are certain small ways in which a government can occasionally be served by the help of some one outside its diplomatic service altogether, some one who could not possibly be connected with it. You know this very well, Penelope, because you have already been of service to us on more than one occasion.”
“It was a long time ago,” she murmured.
“Not so very long,” he reminded her. “But for the first of these tragedies, Fynes’ despatches would have reached me through you. I am going to ask your help even once more.”
In the somewhat cold spring sunlight which came streaming through the large window, Penelope seemed a little pallid, as though, indeed, the fatigue of the season, even in this its earlier stages, were leaving its mark upon her. There were violet rims under her eyes. A certain alertness seemed to have deserted her usually piquant face. She sat listening with the air of one half afraid, who has no hope of hearing pleasant things.
“It has been remarked,” Mr. Harvey continued, “or rather I may say that I myself have noticed, that you are on exceedingly friendly terms with a very distinguished nobleman who is at present visiting this country—I mean, of course, Prince Maiyo.”
Her eyebrows were slowly elevated. Was that really the impression people had! Her lips just moved.
“Well?” she asked.
“I have met Prince Maiyo myself,” Mr. Harvey continued, “and I have found him a charming representative of his race. I am not going to say a word against him. If he were an American, we should be proud of him. If he belonged to any other country, we should accept him at once for what he appears to be. Unfortunately, however, he belongs to a country which we have some reason to mistrust. He belongs to a country in whose national character we have not absolute confidence. For that reason, my dear Penelope, we mistrust Prince Maiyo.”
“I do not know him so well as you seem to imagine,” Penelope said slowly. “We are not even friends, in the ordinary acceptation of the word. I am, to some extent, prejudiced against him. Yet I do not believe that he is capable of a dishonorable action.”
“Nor do I,” the Ambassador declared smoothly. “Yet in every country, almost in every man, the exact standard of dishonor varies. A man will lie for a woman’s sake, and even in the law courts, certainly at his clubs and amongst his friends, it will be accounted to his righteousness. A patriot will lie and intrigue for his country’s sake. Now I believe that to Prince Maiyo Japan stands far above the whole world of womankind. I believe that for her sake he would go to very great lengths indeed.”
“Go on, please,” Penelope murmured.
“The Prince is over here on some sort of an errand which it isn’t our business to understand,” Mr. Harvey said. “I have heard it rumored that it is a special mission entirely concerned with the renewal of the treaty between England and Japan. However that may be, I have sat here, and I have thought, and I have come to this conclusion, ridiculous though it may seem to you at first. I believe that somewhere behind the hand which killed and robbed Hamilton Fynes and poor Dicky stood the benevolent shadow of our friend Prince Maiyo.”
“You have no proof?” she asked breathlessly.
“No proof at all,” the Ambassador admitted. “I am scarcely in a position to search for any. The conclusion I have come to has been simply arrived at through putting a few facts together and considering them in the light of certain events. In the first place, we cannot doubt that the secret of those despatches reached at once the very people whom we should have preferred to remain in ignorance of them. Haven’t I told you of the sudden cessation of the war alarm in Japan, when once she was assured, by means which she could not mistrust, that it was not the intention of the American nation to make war upon her? The subtlety of those murders, and the knowledge by which they were inspired, must have come from some one in an altogether unique position. You may be sure that no one connected with the Japanese Embassy here would be permitted for one single second to take part in any such illegal act. They know better than that, these wily Orientals. They will play the game from Grosvenor Place right enough. But Prince Maiyo is here, and stands apart from any accredited institution, although he has the confidence of his Ambassador and can command the entire devotion of his own secret service. I have not come to this conclusion hastily. I have thought it out, step by step, and in my own mind I am now absolutely convinced that both these murders were inspired by Prince Maiyo.”
“Even if this were so,” Penelope said, “what can I do? Why have you sent for me? The Prince and I are not on especially friendly terms. It is only just lately that we have been decently civil to one another.”
The Ambassador looked at her with some surprise.
“My dear Penelope,” he said, “I have seen you together the last three or four evenings. The Prince looks at no one else while you are there. He talks to you, I know, more freely than to any other woman.”
“It is by chance,” Penelope protested. “I have tried to avoid him.”
“Then I cannot congratulate you upon your success,” Mr. Harvey said grimly.
“Things have changed a little between us, perhaps,” Penelope said. “What is it that you really want?”
“I want to know this,” the Ambassador said slowly. “I want to know how Japan became assured that America had no intention of going to war with her. In other words, I want to know whether those papers which were stolen from Fynes and poor Dicky found their way to the Japanese Embassy or into the hands of Prince Maiyo himself.”
“Anything else?” she asked with a faint note of sarcasm in her tone.
“Yes,” Mr. Harvey replied, “there is something else. I should like to know what attitude Prince Maiyo takes towards the proposed renewal of the treaty between his country and Great Britain.”
She shook her head.
“Even if we were friends,” she said, “the very closest of friends, he would never tell me. He is far too clever.”
“Do not be too sure,” Mr. Harvey said. “Sometimes a man, especially an Oriental, who does not understand the significance of your sex in these matters, can be drawn on to speak more freely to a woman than he would ever dream of doing to his best friend. He would not tell you in as many words, of course. On the other hand, he might show you what was in his mind.”
“He is going back very shortly,” Penelope remarked.
Mr. Harvey nodded.
“That is why I sent for you to come immediately. You will see him tonight at Devenham House.”
“With all the rest of the world,” she answered, “but a man is not likely to talk confidentially under such conditions.”
Mr. Harvey rose to his feet.
“It is only a chance, of course,” he admitted, “but remember that you know more than any other person in this country except myself. It would be impossible for the Prince to give you credit for such knowledge. A casual remark, a word, perhaps, may be sufficient.”
Penelope held out her hand. The servant for whom the Ambassador had rung was already in the room.
“I will try,” she promised. “Ask Mrs. Harvey to excuse my going up to see her this afternoon. I have another call to make, and I want to rest before the function tonight.”
The Ambassador bowed, and escorted her to the door.
“I have confidence in you, Penelope,” he said. “You will try your best?”
“Oh, yes!” she answered with a queer little laugh, “I shall do that. But I don’t think that even you quite understand Prince Maiyo!”