So far as Sandy Graham was concerned, his unconsciousness might have lasted an hour or a day. As a matter of fact, it was scarcely a minute after the disappearance of Fischer and his confederates when he was conscious of a rush of cold air in the place, and beheld the vision of a tiny flash of light at the lower end of the gloomy building. Immediately afterwards he heard the soft closing of a door and beheld a tall, shadowy figure slowly approaching. He lay quite still and looked at it, and his heart began to beat with hope. One of the lights had been left burning, and there was something in the bearing and attitude of the man who finally came to a standstill by his side, which was entirely reassuring.
"Lutchester!" he faltered. "My God, how did you get here?"
"Offices of a young lady," Lutchester observed, producing a knife from his pocket. "Allow me!"
He cut the cords which still secured Graham's limbs. Then he looked around him.
"How did they bring you here?" he whispered. "I suppose there is a passage from the restaurant?"
"Up through a trapdoor there," Graham explained, pointing.
Lutchester stood over it and listened intently.
Then he turned around, lifted the glass of brandy from the table, smelt it approvingly, and tasted it.
"Excellent!" he pronounced. "The 1840. Allow me!"
He refilled the glass and handed it to Sandy, who gulped down the contents. The effect was almost instantaneous. In less than a minute he had staggered to his feet.
"Feel strong enough to walk about fifty yards?" Lutchester inquired.
"I'd walk to hell to get out of this place!" was the prompt reply.
Lutchester took his arm, and they passed down the dusty aisle between the worm-eaten and decaying benches and through the outside door, which Lutchester closed and locked behind them. The rush of cold air was like new life to Graham.
"I can walk all right now," he muttered. "My God, we'll give these fellows hell for this!"
They made their very difficult way across a plot of ground from which a row of dilapidated cottages had been razed to the ground. The fog still hung around them and seemed to bring with it a curious silence, although the dying traffic from one of the main thoroughfares reached them in muffled notes. Lutchester climbed to the top of a pile of rubbish and then, turning around, held out his hand.
"Up here," he directed.
Graham struggled up until he stood by his companion's side. The latter stood quite still, listening for a moment. Then he climbed a little higher and swung around, holding out his hand once more.
"I'm on top of the wall," he said. "Come on."
Graham's knees were shaking, but with Lutchester's help he staggered up and reached his side. On the pavement below a man in chauffeur's livery was standing, holding out his hands, and by the side of the curbstone a closed car was waiting. Somehow or other the two reached the pavement. Lutchester almost pushed his companion into the limousine and stepped in after him. The chauffeur sprang to his seat and the car glided off. Graham just realised that there was a woman by his side whose face was vaguely familiar. Then the waves broke in upon his ears once more.
"I was right, then, it seems," Pamela observed approvingly. "You were just the man for this little affair."
Lutchester sighed.
"Unfortunately," he confessed, "a messenger boy would have been as effective. I stumbled over to the chapel—rubber shoes, you observe," he remarked, pointing downwards—"and soon discovered that blinds had been let down all round and that there were people inside. There was just a faint chink in one, and I caught a glimpse of several men, your friend Oscar amongst them. Having," he went on, "an immense regard for my personal safety, I was hesitating what means to adopt when the lights were lowered, and it seemed to me that the men were disappearing."
"Do go on," Pamela murmured. "This is most exciting."
"In a sense it was disappointing," Lutchester complained. "I had pictured for myself a dramatic entrance … a quiet turning of the key, a soft approach—owing to my shoes," he reminded her—"a cough, perhaps, or a breath … discovery, me with a revolver in my hand pointed to the arch-villain—'If you stir you're a dead man!' … Natural collapse of the villain. With my left hand I slash the bonds which hold Graham, with my right I cover the miscreants. One of them, perhaps, might creep behind me, and I hesitate. If I move my revolver the other two will get the drop on me—I think that is the correct expression? A wonderful moment, that, Miss Van Teyl!"
"But it didn't happen," she protested.
"Ah! I forgot that," he acknowledged. "Still, I was prepared, I had the revolver all right. But as you say, it didn't happen. I made my way to the chapel door, let myself in, found our friend lying in a half-comatose state upon one of the blue plush Henry sofas, in the shadow of a horrible deal pulpit. I gathered that he had been left there to reflect upon his sins. There was a bottle of remarkably fine brandy within reach, which I tested, and with which I dosed our friend here. I then cut away his bonds, arm in arm we walked down the aisle, I locked up the place, threw the key away, kicked my shins half-a-dozen times crossing that disgusting little plot of land, climbed boldly to the top of the wall, and behold!"
Pamela smiled upon him in congratulatory fashion.
"On the whole," she said, "I am quite glad that I telephoned to you."
"You showed a sound discretion," he admitted.
"If he had not been lame," she confessed, "I should have sent toCaptain Holderness."
"That would have been a great mistake," Lutchester assured her. "Holderness is a good fellow but devoid of imagination. He is great on constituted authority. He would have probably marched up with a squad of heavy-footed policemen—and found nothing."
"Yet I must confess," Pamela persisted, with a frankness unaccountable even to herself, "that if I could have thought of any one else I should never have telephoned to you."
"And why not?"
"Because I should not have classified you as being of the adventurous type," she declared.
Lutchester looked injured.
"After all," he protested, "that is not my fault. That is due to your singular lack of perception. However, I am able to return the compliment. I, for my part, should have thought that you were more interested in the fashions than in paying exceedingly rash visits to degenerate orientals and negroes."
"Perhaps some day," she remarked, "we may understand one another better."
He met her gaze with a certain seriousness.
"I hope that we may," he said.
For some reason they were both silent for a moment. Her tone had changed a little when she spoke again.
"You are sure," she asked, "that you do not mind my leaving the rest of this affair in your hands? There are reasons, which I cannot tell you of just now, which make me anxious not to appear in it at all."
"I accept the charge as a privilege," he assented. "We are within a few yards of my rooms now. I promise you that I will look after Captain Graham and advise him as to the proper course for him to pursue."
The car came to a standstill.
"This then," she said, holding out her hand, "will be good-by for the present."
He held her fingers for a moment without reply. Quite suddenly she decided that she liked him. Then he lifted Graham, who was half asleep, half unconscious, to his feet, and assisted him from the car.
"Where shall I tell the man to go to?" he inquired.
"He knows," she answered with sudden taciturnity.
"Wherever it may be, then," he replied, "bon voyage!"
It was about half-an-hour later when Sandy Graham opened his eyes and began to feel the life once more warm in his veins. He was seated in the most comfortable easy-chair of John Lutchester's bachelor sitting-room. By his side was a coffee equipage and a decanter of brandy. His head still throbbed, and his bones ached, but his mind was beginning to grow clearer. Lutchester, who had been seated at the writing table, swung round in his chair at the sound of his guest's movement.
"Feeling better, eh?" he asked.
"I am all right now," was the somewhat shaky reply. "Got a head like a turnip and a tongue like a lime-kiln, but I'm beginning—to feel myself."
"How's your memory?"
"Hazy. Let me see…. My God, I've been robbed, haven't I!"
"So I imagine," Lutchester replied. "You rather asked for it, didn't you?"
Graham moved uneasily in his place. He had suddenly the feeling of being back at school—and in the presence of the headmaster.
"I suppose I did in a way," he admitted, "but at Henry's—why, I've always looked upon the place as a club more than anything else."
"I am afraid that I can't agree with you there," Lutchester observed. "I should consider Henry's a remarkably cosmopolitan restaurant, where a man in your position should exercise more than even ordinary restraint."
"I suppose I was wrong," Graham muttered, "but I had been working for about ten hours on end, and then rushed up to London in the car to try and keep my appointment with Holderness."
"Stop anywhere on the way?"
"We had a few drinks," Graham confessed. "I was so done up. Perhaps I had more than I meant to. However, it's no use bothering about that now. I've been robbed, and that's all there is about it. Could we get on to Scotland Yard from here?"
"We could, but I don't think we will," Lutchester replied.
Graham was puzzled.
"Why not?" he demanded. "That formula was the most wonderful thing that has ever been put together, and the whole thing's so simple. I've been afraid every second that some one else might stumble upon it."
"It is without doubt a great loss," Lutchester admitted. "All the same, I don't fancy that it's a Scotland Yard business exactly. Have you any idea who robbed you?"
Graham paused to think. His eyes were still troubled and uncertain.
"It's coming back to me," he muttered. "I remember that beastly barn of a chapel. There were Jules, and that musician fellow, and the big American. He emptied my pockets … Why, of course, I remember how angry he was … My pocketbook was gone! They left me alone to write out the formula again, and then you came…. How on earth did you tumble on to my being there, Lutchester?"
"It was Miss Pamela Van Teyl whom you must thank," Lutchester told him, "not me. It seems she knew more about Henry's than any of us. She'd come up against some of the crew in Berlin, and she guessed they were holding you for that formula. She got the key out of one of those men and then telephoned to me for my help."
"And I never even thanked her," Graham murmured weakly.
There was a moment's silence. The recovering man's consciousness of his position and of events was evidently as yet incomplete. He sat up suddenly in his chair, gripping the sides of it. His eyes were large with reminiscent trouble.
"My pocketbook had gone when they searched me," he muttered.
"Are you sure that you had it with you when you came into Henry's?"Lutchester inquired.
"Absolutely certain."
"Do you think you can remember now what happened when you went upstairs?"
"I reached the lavatory all right—you were with me then, weren't you?" Graham said reflectively. "I hung up my coat while I washed, but there was no one else in the room. Then you went downstairs and I brushed my hair and just stopped to light a cigarette. You know that on the right-hand side of the landing there is a room where the musicians change. Joseph, that black devil, was standing in the doorway. He grinned as I came into sight. 'Lady wants to speak to you for a moment, Captain Graham,' he said. Well, you know how harmless the fellow looks—just a good-natured, smiling nigger. I never dreamed of anything wrong. As a matter of fact, I thought that Peggy Vincent—that's a young lady I often go to Henry's with—wanted to have a word with me before I joined our party. I stepped inside the room, and that's just about all I can remember. It must have been jolly quick. His arm shot round my neck, the door was closed, and that other brute—Hassan, I think it was—held something over my face."
"But that room was searched," Lutchester reminded him.
"Well I came to just a little," Graham explained, "I found that I was in a sort of cupboard place, behind the lockers these fellows have for their clothes. It opens with a spring lock, and you'd never notice it, searching the room."
"Who was the first person you saw when you recovered consciousness?"
Graham's forehead was wrinkled in the effort to remember.
"I can't quite get hold of it," he confessed, "but I have a sort of fancy I can't altogether get rid of that there was a woman about."
Lutchester looked at the end of the cigarette he had just lit.
"A woman?" he repeated. "That's queer."
"I can't remember anything definitely until I woke up in that chapel," Graham continued, "but when they searched me and found that the pocketbook had gone, Fischer, the big American, muttered some woman's name. I was queer just at the moment, but it sounded very much to me like Miss Van Teyl's. He rang her up on the telephone."
"Did they suspect Miss Van Teyl, then, of having taken your pocketbook?"
Graham shook his head.
"I lost the drift of things just then," he admitted. "She couldn't have done, in any case. Forgive me, but aren't we wasting time, Mr. Lutchester? We must do something. Couldn't you ring up Scotland Yard now?"
"I certainly could," Lutchester assented, "but, as I told you just now,I don't think that I will."
Graham stared at him.
"But why not?"
"For certain very definite reasons with which you needn't trouble yourself just now," Lutchester pronounced. "The formula has gone, without a doubt, but it certainly isn't in the hands of any of the people at Henry's."
"But there's that American fellow—Fischer!" Graham exclaimed. "He was the ringleader!"
"Just so," Lutchester murmured thoughtfully. "However, he hasn't got the formula."
"But he planned the attack upon me," Graham protested. "He is an enemy—a German—sheltering himself under his American naturalization. Surely we're going for him?"
"He's a wrong 'un, of course," Lutchester admitted, "but he hasn't got the formula."
"But we must do something!" Graham continued, his anger rising as his strength returned. "Why, the place is a perfect den of conspirators! I expect Ferrani himself is in it, and there's that other maitre d'hotel, Jules, and those black beasts, Joseph and Hassan, besides Fischer. My God, they shall pay for this!"
Lutchester nodded.
"I dare say they will," he admitted, "but not quite in the way you are thinking of."
Graham half rose to his feet.
"Look here," he said, "I'm sane enough now, aren't I, and in my proper senses? You are not going to suggest that we don't turn the police on to that damned place?"
"I certainly am," was the brief reply.
Graham was aghast.
"What do you mean to do, then?"
"Leave them alone for the present. Not one of them has the formula. Not one of them even knows where it is."
"But the attack upon me?"
"You asked for all you got," Lutchester told him curtly, "and perhaps a little more."
The first tinge of colour came back to Graham's cheeks. His eyes flashed with anger.
"Perhaps I did," he admitted, "but that doesn't alter the fact that I'm going to have some of my own back out of them."
Lutchester crossed his legs and turned round in his chair. For the first time he directly faced his visitor. His tone, though not unkindly, was imperative.
"Young fellow," he said, "you'll have to listen to me about this."
A smouldering sense of revolt suddenly found words.
"Listen to you? What the devil have you got to do with it?" Graham demanded.
"I hate to remind any one of an obligation," Lutchester answered, "butI am under the impression that, together with Miss Van Teyl, of course,I rescued you from an exceedingly inconvenient situation."
"I haven't had time yet to tell you how grateful I am," Graham said awkwardly. "You were a brick, of course, and how you and Miss Van Teyl tumbled on to the whole thing I can't imagine. But I don't understand what you're getting at now. You can't suggest that I am to leave these fellows alone and not give information to the police?"
"The character of the place," Lutchester assured him, "is already perfectly well known to the heads of the police. The matter will be dealt with, but not in the way you suggest. And so far as regards Fischer, I do not wish him interfered with for the present."
"You do not wish him interfered with?" Graham repeated. "Where the devil do you come in at all?"
"You can leave me out of the matter for the present. You want the formula back, don't you?"
"My God, yes!" Graham muttered fervently. "It's all very well to give one a pencil and a piece of paper and say 'Write it out,' but there are calculations and proportions—"
"Precisely," Lutchester interrupted. "You want it back again. Why not let Fischer do the business? He has an idea where it's gone. The thing to do seems to me to follow him."
"To follow Fischer?" Graham repeated vaguely.
"Precisely. If he thinks the formula is in England, Fischer will stay in England. If he thinks that it has gone abroad he will go abroad. If we leave him free we can watch which he does."
Graham swallowed half a wineglassful of the brandy by his side. Then he leaned forward.
"Look here," he said, "you'll forgive me if I repeat myself and ask you once more—what the hell has all this got to do with you?"
"Just this much," Lutchester replied, "that I insist upon your taking the course of action in this matter which I propose."
"You mean," Graham protested, working himself gradually into a state of wrath, "that I am to go back to my rooms as though nothing had happened, see Holderness and the others to-morrow, and not have a word of explanation to offer? That I am to leave those blackguards at Henry's to try their dirty games on some one else, and let Fischer, the man who was fully inclined to become my murderer, go away unharmed? I think not, Mr. Lutchester. I am much obliged for your help, but you are talking piffle."
"What do you propose to do, then?"
"I am going round to Scotland Yard myself."
Lutchester rose to his feet.
"Stay where you are for a minute, please," he begged.
He passed into a smaller room, and Graham could hear faintly the sound of the telephone. In a minute or two his host returned.
"Go in there and speak, Graham," he invited. "You will find some one you know at the other end."
Graham did as he was bidden, and Lutchester closed the door after him. For a few minutes the latter sat in his chair, smoking quietly, his eyes fixed upon the fire. Then his unwilling guest reappeared. He came into the room a little unsteadily and looked with new eyes at the man who seemed so unaccountably to have taken over the control of his affairs.
"I don't understand all this," he muttered. "Who the devil are you, anyway, Lutchester?"
"A very ordinary person, I can assure you," was the quiet reply."However, you are satisfied, I suppose, that my advice is good?"
"Yes, I am satisfied," Graham answered nervously. "You know that—thatI'm under arrest?"
Lutchester nodded.
"Well, you're not asking for my sympathy, I suppose?" he observed drily.
The young man flushed.
"I know that I behaved like a fool," he admitted. "All the same, I've been working night and day for weeks on this problem. I haven't even been up to town once. I must say I think they seem inclined to be a little hard on me."
"No one is going to be in the least hard on you," Lutchester assured him. "You have committed a frightful indiscretion, and all that is asked of you now is to keep your mouth shut. If you do that, I think a way will be found for you out of your troubles."
"But what is to become of me?" Graham demanded.
"I understand that you are to be taken to Northumberland to-morrow," Lutchester informed him. "There you will be allowed every facility for fresh experiments. In the meantime, I have promised to give you a shakedown here for the night. You will find a soldier on guard outside your door, but you can treat him as your servant."
"You are very kind," Graham faltered, a little vaguely. "If only I could understand—"
Lutchester rose to his feet. His manner became more serious, his tone had in it a note of finality.
"Captain Graham," he interrupted, "don't try to understand. I will tell you as much as this, if it helps you. Henry's Restaurant will be placed under the closest surveillance, but we wish nothing disturbed there at the moment until we have discovered the future plans of Mr. Oscar Fischer."
"The big German-American," Graham muttered. "He's the man you ought to get hold of."
"Some day I hope that we may," Lutchester declared. "For the moment, however, we want him undisturbed. You would scarcely believe it, perhaps, if I told you that the theft of your formulas is only a slight thing compared to the bigger business that man has on hand. There is something else at the back of his head which is worth heaven and earth to us to understand. We want the formula and we shall have it, but more than anything else in the world we want to know why Fischer has pledged his word in Berlin to bring this war to an end within three months. We have to find that out, and we are going to find it out—from him. You see, I have treated you with confidence, Captain Graham. Now let me show you to your room." Graham put his hand to his forehead.
"I feel as though this were some sort of nightmare," he muttered. "I've known you for several months, Mr. Lutchester, and I have never heard you say a serious word. You dance at Henry's; you made a good soldier, they said, but you'd had enough of it in twelve months; you play auction bridge in the afternoons; and you talk about the war as though it were simply an irritating circumstance. And to-night—"
Lutchester threw open the door of his own bedroom and pointed to the bathroom beyond.
"My man has put out everything he thinks you may want," he said. "Try and get a good night's sleep. And, Graham."
"Yes?"
"Don't bother your head about me, and don't ask any more questions."
TheLaplandwas two days out from Tilbury before Pamela appeared on deck, followed by her maid with an armful of cushions, and the deck steward with her rugs. She had scarcely made herself comfortable in a sunny corner when she was aware of the approach of a large, familiar figure. Her astonishment was entirely genuine.
"Mr. Fischer!" she exclaimed. "Why, how on earth did you catch this steamer? I thought you were coming on the Thursday boat?"
"Some inducement to change my mind," Mr. Fischer replied, drawing a chair up to her side.
"Meaning me?"
"I guess that's so!"
"Of course, I'm exceedingly flattered," Pamela observed, "or rather I should be if I believed you, but I don't see how you could leave a supper-party at Henry's and go straight to Tilbury."
"Say, how did you know I was supping at Henry's?" he inquired.
"Because I was there for luncheon myself, as you know," she answered carelessly, "and I heard you order your table for supper."
Mr. Fischer nodded reminiscently.
"I always wind up with a little supper at Henry's, on my last night in London," he remarked. "It left me two hours to get down to Tilbury, but it don't take me long to start for anywhere when I once make up my mind. That's the American of us, I suppose. Besides, I never need much in the way of luggage. I keep clothes over on the other side and clothes in New York, and a grip always ready packed for a journey."
"You're so typical," she murmured, smiling.
"I don't know about that," he replied. "My business makes it necessary for me to be always on the go. Have you heard from your brother lately?"
Pamela shook her head.
"Jimmy is the most terrible correspondent," she complained. "I don't think I've had any mail from him for two months."
"You didn't know that he and I were sharing rooms together, then, in the Plaza Hotel, I suppose?"
Pamela turned her head a little and gazed at her companion in genuine surprise.
"Sharing rooms in the Plaza Hotel?" she repeated…. "You and Jimmy?"
"I guess that's so," Mr. Fischer assented. "We were doing business together one day, and the subject cropped up somehow or other. Your brother was thinking of making a move, and I'd just been shown these rooms, which were a trifle on the large side for me. I made him an offer and he jumped at it."
"I hope you're not leading James into extravagant ways," she remarked anxiously. "I loved his little apartment in Forty-Second Street and it was so inexpensive."
"Your brother's share of these rooms isn't anything more than he can afford," Mr. Fischer assured her. "That I can promise you. I guess his firm is doing well just now. If they've many more clients like me they are."
"It is very nice of you to put business in his way," Pamela said thoughtfully. "I wonder why you do it, Mr. Fischer?"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Well," Pamela went on, her eyes travelling out seaward for a moment, "you seem to be one of those sort of men, Mr. Fischer, who never do anything without an object."
"Somepowers of observation," he admitted blithely.
"You have an object in being kind to Jimmy, then?"
Mr. Fischer produced a cigar case and selected a cheroot.
"Mind my smoking?"
"Not in the least. The only time I mind things is when people don't answer my questions."
"I was only kind of hesitating," Mr. Fischer went on, leaning back once more in his chair. "You want the truth, don't you?"
"I never think anything else is worth while."
"In the first place, then," her companion began, "your brother belongs to what I suppose is known as the exclusive set in New York. I am a Westerner with few friends there. Through him I have obtained introductions to several people whom it was interesting to me, from a business point of view, to know."
"I see," Pamela murmured. "You are at least frank, Mr. Fischer."
"I am going to be more frank still," he promised her. "Then another reason, of course, was because I liked him, and a third, which I am not sure wasn't the chief of all, because he was your brother."
Pamela laughed gaily.
"Is that necessary?"
"Necessary or not, it's the truth," he assured her. "I am a man of quick impressions and lasting ones."
"But we've never met except on a steamer," Pamela reminded him.
"I know it's the fashion," Mr. Fischer said, "to turn up one's nose at steamer acquaintances. It isn't like that with me. You see, I don't have as much opportunity of meeting folk as some others, perhaps. The most interesting people I've known socially I've met on steamers. I sat at your table, side by side with you, Miss Van Teyl, for seven days a few months ago. I guess I'll remember those seven days as long as I live."
Pamela turned her head and looked at him. The faintly derisive smile died away from her lips. The man was in earnest. A certain curiosity stole into her eyes as the seconds passed. She studied his hard, strong face, with its great jaw and prominent forehead; the mouth, a little too full, and belying the rest of his physiognomy, yet with its own peculiar strength. He had taken off his spectacles, and it seemed to her that the cold, flinty light of his eyes had caught for a moment some touch of the softer blue of the sea or the sky. Seated, he lost some of the awkwardness of his too great and ill-carried height. It seemed to her that he was at least a person to be reckoned with, either in friendship or enmity.
"Are you an American born, Mr. Fischer," she asked him.
He shook his head.
"I was born at Offenbach," he told her, "near Frankfurt. My father brought me out to America when I was eleven years old."
"You must find the present condition of things a little trying for you," she observed.
Oscar Fischer put on his glasses again. He did not answer for several moments.
"That opens up a subject, Miss Van Teyl," he said, "which some day I should like to discuss with you."
"Why not now?" she invited. "I feel much more inclined for conversation than reading."
"Tell me, then, to begin with," he asked thoughtfully, "on which side are your sympathies?"
"I try to do my duty as an American citizen," she replied promptly, "and that is to have no sympathies. Our dear country has set the world an example of what neutrality should be. I think it is the duty of us Americans to try and bring ourselves into exactly the same line of feeling."
He changed his position a little uneasily. His attitude became less of a sprawl. His eyes were fixed upon her face.
"I fear," he said, "that we are going to begin by a disagreement. I do not consider that America has realised in the least the duties of a neutral nation."
"You must explain that at once, if you please, before we go any further," Pamela insisted.
"Is this neutrality?" Fischer demanded, his rather harsh voice almost raucous now with a touch of real feeling. "America ships daily millions of dollars' worth of those things that make war possible, to France, to Italy, above all to England. She keeps them supplied with ammunition, clothing, scientific instruments, food—a dozen things which make war easier. To Germany she sends nothing. Is that neutrality?"
"But America is perfectly willing to deal in the same way with Germany," Pamela pointed out. "German agents can come and place their orders and take away whatever they want. The market is as much open to her as to the Allies."
Fischer was sitting bolt upright in his chair now. There was a little spot of colour in his cheeks and his eyes flashed behind his spectacles. He struck the side of the chair. He was very angry.
"That is Jesuitical," he declared. "It is perfectly well-known thatGermany is not in a position to fetch munitions from America.Therefore, I say that there is no neutrality in supplying one side inthe war with goods which the other is unable to procure."
"Then you place upon America the onus of Germany's naval inferiority,"Pamela remarked drily.
"Germany's maritime inferiority does not exist," Mr. Fischer protested. "When the moment arrives that the High Seas fleet comes out for action the world will know the truth."
"Then hadn't it better come," Pamela suggested, "and clear the ocean for your commerce?"
"That isn't the point," Fischer insisted. "We have wandered from the main issue. I say that America abandons its neutrality when it helps the Allies to continue the war."
"I don't think you will find," Pamela replied, "that international law prevents any neutral country from supplying either combatant with munitions. If one country can fetch the things and the other can't, that is the misfortune of the country that can't. For one moment look at the matter from England's point of view. She has built up a mighty navy to keep the seas clear for exactly this purpose—to continue her commerce from abroad. Germany instead has built up a mighty army, with which she has overrun Europe. Germany has had the advantage from her army. Why shouldn't England have the advantage from her navy?"
"Let me ask you the question you asked me a few minutes ago," her companion begged. "Were you born in America—or England?"
"I was born in America," Pamela told him; "so were my parents and my grandparents. I claim to be American to the backbone. I claim even to treat any sympathies I might have in this affair as prejudices, and not even to allow them a single corner in my brain."
Mr. Fischer sat quite still for several moments. He was struggling very hard to keep his temper. In the end he succeeded.
"We will not, then, pursue the subject of America's neutrality," he said, "because it is obvious that we disagree fundamentally. But tell me this, now, as an American and a patriot. Which do you think would be better for America—That Germany and Austria won this war, or the Allies?"
"Upon that question I have not altogether made up my mind," Pamela confessed.
"Then there is room there for a discussion," Mr. Fischer pointed out eagerly. "I should like to put my views before you on this matter."
"And I should love to hear them," Pamela replied, "but I feel just now as though we had talked enough politics. Do you know that I came up on deck in a state of great agitation?"
"Submarine alarms from the stewardess?" Mr. Fischer suggested.
"I am not afraid of submarines, but I have a most profound dislike for thieves," Pamela declared.
"You have not had anything stolen?" he asked quickly.
"I have not," Pamela replied, "but the only reason seems to be that I have nothing worth stealing. When I got back from luncheon this afternoon I found that my stateroom had been systematically searched."
She turned her head a little lazily and looked at her neighbour. His expression was entirely sympathetic.
"Your jewellery?"
"Deposited with the purser."
"I congratulate you," he said.
"Nothing has been stolen," she observed, "but one hates the feeling of insecurity, all the same. Both my steward and stewardess are old friends. It must have been a very clever person who found his way into my room."
"A very clever person," Mr. Fischer objected, "would have known that you had deposited your jewels with the purser."
"If it was my jewels of which they were in search," Pamela murmured. "By the bye, do you remember all that fuss about the disappearance of a young soldier that morning at Henry's?"
Fischer nodded.
"I heard something about it," he confessed. "They were talking about it at dinner-time."
"I had an idea that you might be interested," Pamela went on. "He was rather a foolish young man. He came into the restaurant telling every one at the top of his voice that he had made a great discovery! Even in London, which is, I should think, the most prosaic city in the world, there must be people who are on the lookout to pick up war secrets."
"Even in London, as you remark," Fischer assented.
"You didn't hear the end of the affair, I suppose?" she asked him.
The steward had arrived with afternoon tea. Fischer threw into the sea the cigar which he had been smoking.
"I do not think," he said, "that the end has been reached yet."
Pamela sighed.
"Les oreilles ennemies!" she quoted. "I suppose one has to be careful everywhere."
It was one evening towards the end of the voyage, and about an hour after dinner. A huge form loomed out of the darkness, continuing its steady promenade along the unlit portion of the deck. Pamela, moved by some caprice, abandoned her caution of the last few days and called out.
"Mr. Fischer!"
He stopped short. The sparks flew from the red end of his cigar, which he tossed into the sea. He hastened towards her.
"Miss Van Teyl?" he replied, a little hesitatingly.
"How clever of you to know my voice!" she observed. "I am in the humour to talk. Will you sit down, please?"
Mr. Fischer humbly drew a chair to her side.
"I had an idea," he said, "that you had been avoiding me the last two or three days."
"I have," she admitted.
"Have I offended you, then?"
"Scarcely that," she replied, "only, you see, it seemed waste of time to talk to you with the foils on, and a little dangerous, perhaps, to talk to you with them off."
His face reflected his admiration.
"Miss Van Teyl," he declared, "you are quite a wonderful person. I have never believed very much in women before. Perhaps that is the reason why I have never married."
"Dear me, are you a woman-hater?" she asked.
He looked at her steadfastly.
"I have made use of women as playthings," he confessed. "Until I met you I never thought of them as companions, as partners."
She laughed at him through the darkness, and at the sound of her laugh his eyes glowed.
"Really, I am very much flattered," she said. "You give me credit for intelligence, then?"
"I give you credit for every gift a woman should have," he answered enthusiastically. "I recognise in you the woman I have sometimes dreamed of."
Again she laughed.
"Don't tell me, Mr. Fischer," she protested, "that ever in your practical life you have spent a single moment in dreams?"
"I have spent many," he assured her, "but they have all been since I knew you."
Pamela sighed.
"I have never been through a voyage," she observed, "without a love affair. Still, I never suspected you, Mr. Fischer."
"You suspected me, perhaps, of other things."
She nodded.
"I am full of suspicions about you," she admitted. "I am not going to tell you what they are, of course."
"There is one thing of which I am guilty," he confessed. "I should like to tell you about it right now."
"Could I guess it?"
"You're clever enough."
"You like me, don't you, Mr. Fischer?"
"Better than any woman in the world," he answered promptly. "And my confession is—well, just that. Will you marry me?"
Pamela shook her head.
"Quite early in life," she confided, "I made up my mind that I would never give a definite answer to any one who proposed to me on a steamer. I suppose it's the wind, or is it the stars, or the silence, or what? I have known the sanest of men, even like you, Mr. Fischer, become quite maudlin."
"I am brimful of common sense at the present moment," he declared earnestly. "You and I could do great things together, if only I could get you to look at one certain matter from my point of view; to see it as I see it."
"A political matter?" she inquired naively.
"I want to try and persuade you," he confessed, "that America has everything in the world to gain from Germany's success, and everything to lose if the Allies should triumph in this war and Great Britain should continue her tyranny of the seas."
"It's an extraordinarily interesting subject," Pamela admitted.
"It is almost as absorbing," he declared, "as the other matter which just now lies even nearer to my heart."
She withdrew her fingers from his sudden clutch.
"Mr. Fischer," she told him, "what I said just now was quite final. I will not be made love to on a steamer."
"When we land," he continued eagerly, "you will be coming to see your brother, won't you?"
She nodded.
"Of course! I am coming to the Plaza Hotel. That, I suppose, is good news for you, Mr. Fischer."
"Of course it is," he answered, "but why do you say so?"
"It will give you so many opportunities," she murmured.
"Of seeing you?"
She shook her head.
"Of searching my belongings."
There was a moment's silence. She heard his quick breath through the darkness. His voice assumed its harsher tone.
"You believe that it was I who searched your stateroom?"
"I am sure that it was you, or some one acting for you."
"What is it, then, of which I am in search?" he demanded.
"Captain Graham's formula," she replied. "I think you want that a good deal more than you want me."
"You have it then?" he asked fiercely.
She sighed.
"You jump so to conclusions. I didn't say so."
"You went up the stairs … you were the only person who went up just at that one psychological moment! He had his pocketbook with him when he came in—he told Holderness so."
"And when you searched him it was gone," she remarked calmly. "Dear me!"
"How do you know that I searched him?" Fischer demanded.
"How dare you ask me to give away my secrets?" she replied.
"Listen," he began, striving with an almost painful effort to keep his voice down to the level of a whisper, "you and I together, we could do the most marvellous things. I could let you into all my schemes. They are great. They will be successful. After the war is over—"
He held his breath for a moment. The tramp of approaching footsteps warned him of the coming of an intruder. The Captain came to a standstill before their chairs and saluted.
"Miss Van Teyl," he said, "there will be a mutiny in the saloon if you don't come down and sing."
She almost sprang to her feet. The ship was rolling a little, and she laid her fingers upon his arm.
"I meant to come long ago," she declared, "but Mr. Fischer has been so interesting. You will finish telling me your experiences another time, won't you?" she called out over her shoulder. "There is so much that I still want to hear."
Fischer's reply was almost ungracious. He watched their departure in silence, and afterwards leaned further back in his chair. With long, nervous fingers he drew a black cigar from his case and lit it. Then he folded his arms. For more than half an hour he sat there motionless, smoking furiously. He looked out into the chaos of the windy darkness, he heard voices riding upon the seas, shrieking and calling to him, voices to which he had been deaf too long. The burden of these later years of turbulent, brazen, selfish struggling, rolled back. He had been a sentimentalist once, a willing seeker after things which seemed to have passed him by. At his age, he told himself, a man should still find more than one place in the world.
James Van Teyl glanced curiously at the small, dark figure standing patiently before him, and then back again at the wireless cable which he held in his fingers. He was just back from a tiring day in Wall Street, and was reclining in the most comfortable easy-chair of his Hotel Plaza sitting-room.
"Gee!" he murmured. "This beats me. The last thing I should have thought we wanted here was a valet. The fellow who looks after this suite has scarcely anything else to do. What did you say your name was?"
"Nikasti, sir."
Van Teyl carefully reconsidered the cable. It certainly seemed to leave no room for misunderstanding.
Please engage for our service, as valet, Nikasti. See that he enters on his duties at once. Hope land this evening. Your sister on board sends love.—F.
"Well that seems clear enough," the young man muttered, thrusting the form into his waistcoat pocket. "You're here to stay, I guess, Nikasti? I see you've brought your kit along."
"In case you decided to engage me, sir," the man replied.
"Oh, you are engaged right enough," Van Teyl assured him. "You'd better make the best job you can of putting out my evening clothes. If you ring for the floor valet, he'll help you. The bedrooms are through that door."
"Very good, sir!"
"I am going down to the barber's now," Van Teyl continued, rising to his feet. "Just remember this, Nikasti—what a name, by the bye!"
"I could be called Kato," the man suggested.
"Kato for me all the time," his prospective employer agreed. "Well, listen. My sister, Miss Van Teyl, arrives from Europe on theLaplandthis evening. If she comes in or rings up, say I'm here and I want to see her at once. You understand?"
"I understand, sir."
Van Teyl strolled out, and Kato disappeared into the inner room. The floor valet, dressed in the dark blue livery of the hotel, was already laying out his master's dinner clothes. He eyed the intruder a little truculently.
"Who are you, anyway?" he inquired.
"My name is Nikasti," was the quiet reply. "Mr. Van Teyl has engaged me as his valet, to wait upon him and Mr. Fischer."
The man laid down the shirt into which he was fixing the studs.
"That's some news," he remarked bitterly.
"To wait on Mr. Van Teyl and Mr. Fischer, eh? What the hell do they want you for?"
Nikasti shook his head slowly. He was very small, and his dark eyes seemed filled with melancholy.
"It is not for a very long time," he ventured.
"Long enough to do me out of my five dollars' tip every week," the man grumbled. "I'm a married man, too, and a good American. Blast you fellows, coming and taking our jobs away! Can't think what they let you into the country for."
"I am sorry," Nikasti murmured.
"Your sorrow don't bring me in my five dollars," the valet retorted bitterly. "There's only two suites on this floor to work for, anyway, and this is the only one worth a cent."
"I am taking the situation," the other explained, "for the sake of experience. I do not wish to rob you of your earnings. I will pay you the five dollars a week while I stay here. You shall help me with the work."
"That's a deal, my little yellow-skinned kid," the valet agreed in a tone of relief. "I'll show you where the things are kept."
His new coadjutor bowed.
"The telephone is ringing in the master's room," he observed. "You shall remain here, and I will answer it."
"That goes, Jappy," the man acquiesced. "If it's a young lady take her name, but don't say that Mr. Van Teyl's about. Forward young baggages some of them are."
Nikasti glided from the room, closed the door, and approached the telephone receiver.
"Yes," he acknowledged, "these are the rooms of Mr. Van Teyl… No, madam, Mr. Van Teyl is not in at present."
There was a moment's pause. Nikasti's face was impenetrable as he listened, but his eyes glowed.
"Yes, I understand, madam," he said softly. "You are Miss Van Teyl, and you wish to speak to your brother. The moment Mr. Van Teyl returns I will ring you up or fetch you."
He replaced the receiver upon its hook, and returned to the bedroom. For some little time he was initiated into the mysteries of his new master's studs, boots and shoes, and general taste in wearing apparel. Then the latter entered the sitting-room, and Nikasti obeyed his summons.
"Anyone called me up?" he inquired.
"No one, sir."
Van Teyl glanced at the clock in an undecided manner.
"I'll change right away," he decided. "Just set things to rights in here, fill my cigarette case, and hang round by the telephone."
Nikasti bowed, and the young man disappeared into the inner room. His new attendant waited until the door was closed. Then he removed the receiver from its hook, laid it upon the table, and moved stealthily towards the open fireplace. For several moments he remained in an attitude of listening, then with quick, lithe fingers he drew from his pocket a cable dispatch, reread it with an air of complete absorption, and committed it to the flames. He watched it burn, and turned away from the contemplation of its grey ashes with a sigh of content. Suddenly he started. The door of the sitting-room had been opened and closed. A tall, broad-shouldered man, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, a long travelling coat and a Homburg hat, was standing watching him. Nikasti was only momentarily disturbed. His look of gentle inquiry was perfect.
"You wish to see my master—Mr. Van Teyl?" he asked.
"Where is he?" Fischer demanded.
"He is dressing in the next apartment. I will take him your name."
Fischer threw his coat and hat upon the table.
"That'll do directly," he replied. "So you're Nikasti?"
They looked at one another for a moment. The face of the Japanese was smooth, bland, and imperturbable. His eyes were innocent even of any question. Fischer's forehead was wrinkled, and his brows drawn close together.
"I am Nikasti," the other acknowledged—"Kato Nikasti. Mr. Van Teyl has just engaged me as his valet."
"You can take off the gloves," Fischer told him. "I am Oscar Fischer."
"Oscar Fischer," Nikasti repeated.
"Yes! … Burning something when I came in weren't you? Looked like a cable, eh?"
"A dispatch from London," Nikasti confided.
"Nothing that would interest me, eh?"
"It was a family message," was the calm response. "It did not concern the affair which is between us."
"How came you to speak English like this?" Fischer inquired.
"I was at Oxford University for two years," Nikasti told him, "and in the Embassy at London for five more."
"Before you took up your present job, eh?"
Nikasti assented silently. Fischer glanced around as though to make sure that they were still alone.
"I have the communication with me," he announced, "which we are to discuss. The terms of our proposal are clearly set out, and they are signed by the Highest of all himself. The letter embodying them was handed to me three weeks ago to-day in Berlin. Have you been to Washington?"
Nikasti shook his head.
"I do not go to Washington," he said. "You will understand that diplomatically, as you would put it, I do not exist. Neither is it necessary. I am here to listen."
Fischer nodded.
"There need be very little delay, then," he observed, "before we get to work."
Nikasti bowed and raised his forefinger in warning.
"I think," he whispered, "that Mr. Van Teyl has finished dressing."
Van Teyl, as he hastened forward to meet his friend, presented at first sight a very good type of the well-groomed, athletic young American. He was over six feet tall, with smooth, dark hair brushed back from his forehead, a strong, clean-shaven face and good features. Only, as he drew nearer, there was evident a slight, unnatural quivering at the corner of his lips. The cordiality of his greeting, too, was a little overdone.
"Welcome home, Fischer! Why, man, you're looking fine. Had a pleasant voyage?"
"Storms for the first few days—after that all right," Fischer replied.
"Any submarines?"
"Not a sight of one. Seen your sister yet?"
"Not yet. I've been waiting about for a telephone message. She hadn't arrived, a few minutes ago."
Fischer frowned.
"I want us three to meet—you and she and I—the first moment she sets foot in the hotel," he declared.
"What's the hurry?" Van Teyl demanded. "You must have seen plenty of her the last ten days."
"That," Fischer insisted, "was a different matter. See here, Jimmy,I'll be frank with you."
He walked to the door of the bedroom, opened it, and looked inside. Its sole occupant was Nikasti, who was at the far end, putting away some clothes. Fischer closed the door firmly and returned.
"I want you to understand this, James," he began. "Your sister is meddling in certain things she'd best leave alone."
Van Teyl lit a cigarette.
"No use talking to me," he observed. "Pamela's her own mistress, and she's gone her own way ever since she came of age."
"She's got to quit," Fischer pronounced. "That's all there is about it.You and I will have to talk this out. Where are you dining?"
"Downstairs," Van Teyl replied gloomily. "I was thinking of waiting forPamela."
"You leave word to have your people let you know directly she arrives,"Fischer advised, "and come along with me."
Van Teyl allowed himself to be led towards the door. Nikasti, with a due sense of his new duties, glided past them, rang for the lift, and watched them descend. Fischer turned at once towards the dining room.
"Thank God we're in a civilised country," he observed, "and that I don't have to change when I don't want to!"
They found a quiet table, and Fischer, displaying much interest in the menu, ordered a somewhat extensive dinner.
"Grapefruit and Maryland chicken are worth coming back to," he declared. "Now see here, James, let's get to business. You've got to help me with your sister."
"But how?" Van Teyl demanded. "Pamela and I are good pals, of course, but she has a will of her own in all she does, and I don't fancy that anything I could say would influence her very much."
"There are two things about your sister," Fischer continued. "The first is that she's got to quit this secret service business she's got herself mixed up in."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Van Teyl exclaimed. "Pamela doesn't care a fig about politics."
Fischer grunted scornfully.
"You don't know much about your sister, young fellow," he said. "Internal politics over here may not interest her a cent, but she's crazy about America as a country, and she's shrewd enough to see things coming that a great many of you over here aren't looking for. Anyway, she came bang up against me in a little scheme I had on the night before I left Europe, and somewhere about her she's got concealed a document which I'd gladly buy for a quarter of a million dollars."
Van Teyl drank off his second cocktail.
"Some money!" he observed. "How did she come by the prize?"
"Played up for it, just as I did," Fischer replied. "She was clever enough to make use of my scaffolding, and got up the ladder first. I'm not squealing, but I've got to have that document, whatever it costs me."
Van Teyl was silent for a moment. There was an undercurrent of something threatening in his companion's manner, of which he had taken note.
"And the second thing you mentioned?" he asked. "What is that?"
Fischer, as though to give due emphasis to his statement, indulged in a brief pause. Then he leaned a little forward and spoke very slowly and very forcibly.
"I want to marry her," he declared.
Van Teyl learned back in his chair and gazed at his vis-a-vis in blank astonishment.
"You must be a damned fool, Fischer!" he exclaimed.
"You think so?" was the unruffled reply. "I wonder why?"
"I'll tell you why, if you want to know," Van Teyl continued bluntly. "I know of four of the richest and best-looking young men in America, two ambassadors, an English peer, and an Italian prince, who have proposed to Pamela during the last twelve months alone. She refused every one of them."
"Well," Fischer remarked, "she must marry some time."
Van Teyl looked at him insolently.
"I shouldn't think you'd have a dog's chance," he pronounced.
There was a little glitter behind Fischer's spectacles.
"Up till now," he admitted smoothly, "I have not been fortunate. I must confess, however, that I was hoping for your good offices."
"Pamela wouldn't take the slightest notice of anything I might say,"Van Teyl declared. "Besides, I should hate you to marry her."
"A little blunt, are you not, my young friend?" Fischer remarked amiably. "Still, to continue, there is also the matter of that document. I must confess that I exercised all my ingenuity to obtain possession of it on the steamer."
"You would!" Van Teyl muttered.
"Your sister, however," Fischer continued, "was wise enough to have it locked up in the purser's safe the moment she set foot upon the steamer. She gave me the slip when she got it back, and eluded me, somehow, on the quay. She will scarcely have had time to part with it yet, though. When she arrives here to-night, it will in all probability be in her possession."
"Well?" Van Teyl demanded. "You don't suggest that I should rob her of it, I suppose?"
"Not at all," Fischer replied. "On the other hand, you might very well induce her to give it up voluntarily, or at least to treat with me."
"You don't know Pamela," was Van Teyl's curt reply.
"I know her sufficiently," Fischer went on, leaning over the table, "to believe that she would sacrifice a great deal to save her brother from Sing Sing."
Van Teyl took the thrust badly. He started as though he had been stabbed, and his face became almost ghastly in its pallor. He tossed off a glass of wine hastily.
"Just what do you mean by that?" he asked thickly.
"Are you prepared," Fischer continued, "to have me visit your office to-morrow morning and examine my accounts and securities in the presence of your partners?"
"Why not?" Van Teyl faltered. "What the hell do you mean?"
"I mean, James Van Teyl," his companion declared, "that I should find you a matter of a hundred thousand dollars short. I mean that you've realised on some of my securities, gambled on your own account with the proceeds, and lost. You did this as regards one stock at least, with a forged transfer, which I hold."
Van Teyl looked almost piteously around. Life seemed suddenly to have become an unreal thing—the crowds of well-dressed diners, the gentle splashing of the water from the fountains in the winter garden, the distant murmuring of music from behind the canopy of palms. So this was the end of it! All that week he had hoped against hope. He had been told of a sure thing. Next week he had meant to have a great gamble. Everything was to have gone his way, after all. And now it was too late. Fischer knew, and Fischer was a cruel man!…
The unnatural silence came to an end. Only Fischer's voice seemed to come from a long way off.
"Drink your wine, James Van Teyl," he advised, "and listen to me. You've been under obligations to me from the start. I meant you to be. I brought a great business to your firm, and I insisted upon having you interested. I had a motive, as I have for most things I do. You are well placed socially in New York, and I am not. You are also above suspicion, which I am not. It suited me to take this suite in the Plaza, nominally in our joint names, but to pay the whole account myself. It suited me because I required the shelter of your social position. You understand?"
"I always understand," Van Teyl muttered.
"Just so. Only, whereas you simply thought me a snob, I had in reality a different and very definite purpose. We come now, however, to your present obligation to me. I can, if I choose, tear up your forged transfer, submit to the loss of my money, and leave you secure. I shall do so if you are able to induce your sister to hand over to me those few lines of writing—to which, believe me, she has no earthly right—and to accept me as a prospective suitor."