Ambrose Lavendale, Diplomat

E. Phillips Oppenheim

Hodder And Stoughton Limited London 1920

_Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_

Contents

Chapter I

The Man who could have Ended the War

Chapter II

The Lost Formula

Chapter III

A Deal with Niko

Chapter IV

General Matravers Repays

Chapter V

Susceptible Mr. Kessner

Chapter VI

The Machinations of Mr. Courlander

Chapter VII

The Indiscreet Travellers

Chapter VIII

The Undeniable Force

Chapter IX

An Interrupted Review

Chapter X

The Sentence of the Court

Chapter I

The Man Who Could Have Ended The War

It was a few minutes after one o'clock--the busiest hour of the day at the most popular bar in London. The usual little throng of Americans, journalists, men of business and loiterers, were occupying their accustomed chairs in one corner of the long, green-carpeted room. Around the bar, would-be customers were crowded three or four deep--many of them stalwart Canadians in khaki, making the most of their three days' leave, and a thin sprinkling of men about town on their way to lunch in the grill-room adjoining. On the outskirts of the group was a somewhat incongruous figure, a rather under-sized, ill-dressed, bespectacled little man, neither young nor old, colourless, with a stoop which was almost a deformity. His fingers were stained to the tip of his nails as though by chemicals or tobacco juice. He held the glass of vermouth which he had just succeeded in obtaining from the bar, half-way suspended to his lips. He was listening to the conversation around him.

'The most blackguardly trick that has ever been known in civilized warfare!' a Canadian officer declared indignantly.

'It's put the lid on all pretence of conducting this war decently,' another assented. 'What about the Hague Convention?'

'The Hague Convention!' a young journalist from the other side repeated sarcastically. 'I should like to know when Germany has ever shown the slightest regard for the Hague Convention or any other agreement which didn't happen to suit her!'

The little man on the outskirts of the group, who had been listening eagerly to the conversation, ventured upon a question. His accent at once betrayed his transatlantic origin.

'Say, is there anything fresh this morning?' he inquired. 'I haven't seen the papers yet.'

The Canadian glanced down at the speaker.

'We were talking,' he said, 'about the use of poisonous gases by the Germans. They started pumping them at us yesterday and pretty nearly cleared us out of Ypres.'

The effect of this statement upon the little man was, in its way, extraordinary. For a moment he stood with his mouth open, the glass shaking between his fingers, a queer, set expression in his pale face. Then his lips parted and he began to laugh. It was a mirth so obviously ill-timed, so absolutely unaccountable, that they all turned and stared at him. There was no doubt whatever that for some reason or other the news which he had just heard had excited this strange little person almost hysterically. His lips grew further apart, the whole of his face was puckered up in little creases. Then, just as suddenly as his extraordinary impulse towards mirth had come, it seemed to pass away. He drained his glass, set it down on the edge of the counter, and, turning around, walked slowly out of the place. The remarks that followed him were not altogether inaudible and they were distinctly uncomplimentary.

'All I could do to keep my toe off the little devil!' the Canadian exclaimed angrily. 'I'd like to take him back with me out into the trenches for a few days!'

A young man who had been talking to an English officer on the outskirts of the group, turned around. He was a tall, well-set-up young man, with a face rather grave for his years and a mouth a little over-firm. He, too, had watched the exit of the stranger half in indignation, half in contempt.

'Who was that extraordinary little man?' he inquired.

No one seemed to know. The waiter paused with a tray full of glasses.

'He's staying in the hotel--arrived yesterday from America, sir,' he announced. 'I don't know his name, but I think he's a little queer in his head.'

The young man set down his glass upon the counter.

'A person,' he remarked, 'who can laugh at such a ghastly thing, must be either very queer in his head indeed, or----'

'Or what, Ambrose?' his companion asked.

'I don't know,' the other replied thoughtfully. 'Well, _au revoir_, you fellows! I'm going in to lunch. Sure you won't come with me, Reggie?'

'Sorry, I have to be back in ten minutes,' the other replied. 'See you to-morrow.'

Ambrose Lavendale strolled out of the room, crossed the smoke-room and descended into the restaurant. At a table in a remote corner, seated by himself, the little man who had been guilty of such a breach of good-feeling was studying the menu with a waiter by his side. Lavendale watched him for a moment curiously. Then he turned to speak to one of the _maîtres d'hôtel_, a short, dark man with a closely-cropped black moustache.

'I shan't want my usual table this morning, Jules,' he announced. 'I am going to sit in that corner.'

He indicated a vacant table close to the little man whom he had been watching. The _maîtres d'hôtel_ bowed and ushered him towards it.

'Just as you like, Mr. Lavendale,' he said. 'It isn't often you care about this side of the room, though.'

Lavendale seated himself at the table he had selected, gave a brief order, and, leaning back, glanced around him. The little man had sent for a newspaper and was reading it eagerly, but for a moment Lavendale's interest was attracted elsewhere. At the very next table, also alone, also reading a newspaper, was the most striking-looking young woman he had ever seen in his life. Lavendale was neither susceptible nor imaginative. He considered himself a practical, hard-headed person, notwithstanding the fact that he had embraced what was for his country practically a new profession. Nevertheless, he was conscious of what almost amounted to a new interest in life as he studied, a little too eagerly, perhaps, the girl's features. She was dark, with hair brushed plainly back from a somewhat high and beautifully shaped forehead. Her complexion was pale, her eyes a deep shade of soft brown. Her eyebrows were almost Japanese, fine and silky yet intensely dark. Her mouth, even in repose, seemed full of curves. She appeared to be of medium height and she was undoubtedly graceful, and what made her more interesting still to Lavendale was the fact that, although her manner of doing so was stealthy, she, too, was watching the little man who was now commencing his luncheon.

Lavendale, after a few moments' reflection, adopted the obvious course. He summoned Jules and inquired the young lady's name. The man was able at once to give him the desired information.

'Miss de Freyne, sir,' he whispered discreetly. 'She is a writer, I believe. I am not quite sure,' the man added, 'whether she is not the agent over here of some French dramatists. I have seen her sometimes with theatrical parties.'

Lavendale nodded and settled down rather ineffectively to his lunch. Before he had finished he had arrived at two conclusions. The first was that Miss de Freyne, although obviously not for the same reason, was as much interested in the stranger as he was; and the second that his first impressions concerning her personality were, if anything, too weak. He ransacked his memory for the names of all the theatrical people whom he knew, and made mental notes of them. It was his firm intention to make her acquaintance before the day was over. Once their eyes met, and, notwithstanding a reasonable amount of _savoir faire_, for the moment he was almost embarrassed. He found it impossible to glance away, and she returned a regard which he felt in a way was semi-committal, with a queer sort of nonchalant interest in a sense provocative, although it contained nothing of invitation. At the end of the meal Lavendale had come to a decision. He signed his bill, rose from his place and approached the table at which the little man was seated.

'Sir,' he said, 'I am a stranger to you, but I should like, if I may, to ask you a question.'

Even in that moment's pause, when the little man laid down his newspaper and was staring up at his questioner in manifest surprise, Lavendale felt that his proceeding had attracted the strongest interest from the young woman seated only a few feet away. She had leaned ever so slightly forward. A coffee cup with which she had been toying had been noiselessly returned to its saucer. It was genuine interest, this, not curiosity.

'Say, how's that?' the little man exclaimed. 'Ask me a question? Why, I don't know as there'd be any harm in that. I'm not promising that I'll answer it.'

'I was in the bar a moment ago,' Lavendale continued, 'when they were talking of these poisonous gases which the Germans are using. I heard you ask a question and I heard the answer. You were apparently for the first time informed of this new practice of theirs. Will you tell me why, when you heard of it, you laughed?'

The little man nodded his head slowly as though in response to some thought.

'Sit down, young fellow,' he invited. 'Are you an American?'

'I am,' Lavendale admitted. 'My name is Ambrose Lavendale and I was attached to the Embassy here until last August.'

'That so?' the other replied with some interest. 'Well, mine's Hurn. I don't know a soul in London and you may be useful to me, so if you like I'll answer your question. You thought my laugh abominable, I guess?'

'I did,' Lavendale assented,--'we all did. I dare say you heard some of the comments that followed you out!'

'It was a selfish laugh, perhaps,' the little man continued thoughtfully, 'but it was not an inhuman one. Now, sir, I will answer your question. I will tell you what that piece of information which I heard at the bar, and which I find in the paper here, means to me and means to the world. Hold tight, young man. I am going to make a statement which, if you are sensible enough to believe it, will take your breath away. If you don't, you'll think I'm a lunatic. Are you ready?'

'Go ahead,' Lavendale invited. 'I guess my nerves are in pretty good order.'

Mr. Hurn laid the flat of his hand upon the table and looked upwards at his companion. He spoke very slowly and very distinctly.

'I can stop the war,' he declared.

Lavendale smiled at him incredulously--the man was mad!

'Really?' he exclaimed. 'Well, you'll be the greatest benefactor the world has ever known, if you can.'

The little man, who had arrived at the final stage of his luncheon, helped himself to another pat of butter.

'You don't believe me, of course,' he said, 'yet it happens that I am speaking the truth. You are thinking, I guess, that I am a pitifully insignificant little unit in this great city, in this raging world. Yet I have spoken the solid truth. I can stop the war, and, if you like, you can help me.'

Lavendale withdrew his eyes from his new acquaintance's face for a moment and glanced towards the girl. Something that was almost a smile of mutual understanding flashed between them. Doubtless she had overheard some part of their conversation. Lavendale raised his voice a little in order that she might hear more. He felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought that they were establishing a mutual confidence.

'I'll help, of course,' he promised. 'In what direction are your efforts to be made?'

The little man paused in the act of drinking a glass of water, squinted at his questioner, and set the tumbler down empty.

'Wondering what sort of a crank you've got hold of, eh?'

Lavendale began to be impressed. The little man did not look in the least like a lunatic.

'Well, it's rather a sweeping proposition, yours,' Lavendale remarked.

'Everything in the world,' the other reminded him didactically, 'was impossible before it was done. Your help needn't be very strenuous. I guess there's some sort of headquarters in London from which this war is run, eh?'

'There's the War Office,' Lavendale explained.

'Know any one there?'

'Yes, I know a good many soldiers who have jobs there just now.'

'Then I guess you can help by saving me time. Do you happen to be acquainted with any one in the Ordnance Department?'

Lavendale reflected for a moment.

'Yes, I know a man there,' he admitted. 'It's just as well to warn you, though, that they're absolutely fed up with trying new shells and powder.'

The little man smiled--a queer, reflective smile, filled with some quality of self-appreciation which seemed at once to lift him above the whole world of crazy inventors.

'Your friend there now,' he asked, 'or will he be taking his British two hours for lunch?'

'He never leaves the building after he gets there in the morning,' Lavendale replied.

Mr. Daniel H. Hurn signed his bill and laid down an insignificant tip.

'You through with your luncheon?' he inquired. 'Right! Then what about taking me along and letting me have a word with your friend?'

'I don't mind,' Lavendale agreed, a little doubtfully, 'but he hasn't very much influence.'

Again the other smiled, and again Lavendale was impressed by that mysterious contortion. He glanced towards the adjoining table. The girl was still watching them closely. Jules, whom she had apparently just summoned, was standing by her side, and Lavendale was convinced that the questions which she was obviously asking, referred to him. He left the room with reluctance and followed his companion through the hall and into a taxi.

'Not sure whether I told you,' the latter remarked, as he seated himself, 'that my name is Hurn--Daniel H. Hurn--and I come from way out west.'

'Glad to meet you, Mr. Hurn,' Lavendale murmured mechanically. 'You are not taking anything with you to show the people at the War Office, then?'

Mr. Hurn shook his head.

'Not necessary,' he answered. 'Bring me face to face with a live man--that's all I need, that's all you need to end the war.'

'I am an American,' Lavendale reminded him.

Mr. Hurn glanced at his companion curiously. Lavendale, dressed by an English tailor and at home in most of the capitals of Europe, was an unfamiliar type.

'Shouldn't have thought it,' he admitted. 'This the place?'

Lavendale nodded and paid for the taxi without any protest from his companion, whom he piloted down many corridors until they reached a room in the rear of the building. A boy scout guarded the door. He stood on one side to let Lavendale pass, but glanced at his companion questioningly.

'Would you mind waiting here just for a moment?' Lavendale suggested. 'My friend is in this room, working with several other men. It would be better for me to have a word with him first.'

'Sure!' the other agreed. 'You run the show. I'll wait.'

Lavendale entered the apartment and approached the desk before which his friend was sitting.

'Hullo, Reggie!' he exclaimed.

The young man, who was hard at work, looked up from a sheaf of papers and held out his left hand.

'How are you, Ambrose? Sit down by the side of me, if you want to talk. We're up to the eyes here.'

Lavendale leaned over the desk.

'Look here, old chap,' he went on, 'I've come on a sort of fool's errand, perhaps. I've got a little American outside. He's a most unholy-looking object, but he wants a word with some one in the Ordnance Department.'

Merrill shook his head reproachfully.

'Is this quite fair?' he protested. 'We've had our morning dose of cranks already.'

'I'm sorry,' Lavendale said, 'but you've got to deal with one more.'

'Know anything about him?'

'Not a thing,' Lavendale admitted. 'I've talked to him for five minutes, and I have just an idea that you ought to hear what he has to say.'

Merrill laid down a paperweight upon his documents.

'Look here, old fellow,' he said, 'I'll take your little pal round to Bembridge, if you say the word, but I warn you, he is as fed up as I am and he'll be pretty short with him.'

'I shouldn't think my man was sensitive,' Lavendale observed. 'Anyhow, my trouble's over if you'll do that.'

Merrill sighed and closed his desk.

'This way, then.'

They passed out of the room to where Mr. Daniel H. Hurn was waiting. Merrill seemed a little taken aback as Lavendale briefly introduced them, and his glance towards his friend was significant. However, he led them both down the corridor and knocked at a door at the further end.

'Is the General disengaged?' he asked the orderly who opened it.

They were immediately ushered in. Two clerks were seated at a great round table, apparently copying plans. There were models in the room of every form of modern warfare. A tall, thin man in the uniform of a General, was examining some new pattern of hand grenade as they entered.

'Sir,' Merrill began, addressing him apologetically, 'my friend here, Mr. Ambrose Lavendale, who was in the American Embassy for some time, has brought Mr. Daniel Hurn of Chicago to have a word with you.'

The General dropped his eyeglass and sighed.

'An invention?' he asked patiently.

'Something of the sort,' Mr. Hurn admitted briskly. 'Do I understand that you are a General in the British Army?'

'I am, sir,' General Bembridge admitted.

'Very well, then,' Mr. Hurn proceeded, 'I am here to tell you this--I can end your war. When you're through with smiling at me, you'll probably say 'Prove it.' I will prove it. There's a row of taxicabs down below. Take me outside this city of yours to where there's a garden and a field beyond. Afterwards we'll talk business. You'll want to, right enough. It'll take about an hour of your time--and I can end the war!'

There was a moment's silence. The two clerks who had been writing at the table, had turned around. General Bembridge was looking a little curiously at his unusual visitor.

'Mr. Hurn,' he said, 'I will be frank with you. The average number of visitors who present themselves here during the day with devices which will end the war, is twenty. To-day that average has been exceeded. I have already spoken to twenty-four. You make, you see, the twenty-fifth. If we were to go out in taxicabs and watch experiments with every one of them----'

'Pshaw! I'm not one of those cranks,' Mr. Hurn interrupted. 'Read this.'

He handed a half sheet of notepaper across to the General, who adjusted his eyeglass and read. The heading at the top of the notepaper was '_The Chicago School of Chemical Research_' and its contents were brief:

'_Mr. Daniel H. Hurn is a distinguished member of this society. We recommend the attention of the British War Office to any suggestion he may make._'

'Here's another,' Mr. Hurn went on. 'This is from the greatest firm of steel producers in the world--kind of personal.'

General Bembridge glanced at the historic name which recommended Mr. Hurn to the consideration of the Government. Then he sighed.

'I am going to-morrow morning at ten o'clock,' he said, 'to inspect a battery at Hatton Park, three miles from Hatfield, on the road to Baldock. You can meet me at the lodge gate at a quarter to ten and I will give you a quarter of an hour.'

'This afternoon would have been better,' Mr. Hurn observed, buttoning up the letters in his coat, 'but to-morrow morning it shall be.'

The General waved them away. Merrill glanced curiously at the American as the three men walked down the corridor.

'Those letters did the trick,' he remarked. 'Forgive me if I hurry, Lavendale. Don't let your friend be a minute late to-morrow morning or he'll lose his chance.'

'I'll see to that,' Mr. Hurn promised. 'Guess I can hire some sort of an automobile to take me out there. Good morning, Captain Merrill,' he added, by way of parting salute, holding out his curiously stained hand. 'I am much obliged to you for your help, and you can sleep to-night feeling you've done more than any man in this great building to save your country.'

Merrill winked at Lavendale as he disappeared within his room. The latter, with the inventor by his side, stepped out into the street.

'About going down there to-morrow morning----' he began.

'Young man,' Mr. Hurn interrupted impressively, 'you've done your best for me and it's only right you should have your reward. You may accompany me to this place, wherever it is.'

Lavendale laughed softly, a laugh which his companion absolutely failed to understand.

'All right,' he agreed, 'I'll take you down in my car. I'll be at the hotel at nine o'clock.'

'At five minutes to ten, if the General is punctual,' Mr. Hurn promised, 'you shall see the most wonderful sight you have ever witnessed in your life.'

II

Punctually at nine o'clock on the following morning, Lavendale brought his car to a standstill before the front door of the Milan Hotel. Mr. Hurn, looking, if possible, shabbier and more insignificant than ever, was waiting under the portico. He clambered at once to the seat by Lavendale's side.

'Haven't you any apparatus to bring, or anything?' the latter inquired.

Mr. Hurn smiled.

'Not a darned thing!'

Lavendale was puzzled.

'You mean you're ready to start with your experiment, just as you are, like this?'

'Sure!' the little man answered, 'and you'd better get her going.'

They started off in silence. Once more Lavendale, as he glanced at the shabby little object by his side, began to lose confidence. As they swung round into Golder's Green he spoke again.

'What sort of a show are you going to give us?' he asked.

Mr. Hurn glanced at his watch.

'You'll know inside of an hour,' he replied.

Lavendale frowned. His protégé's appearance that morning was certainly not prepossessing. His collar showed distinct traces of its vicissitudes upon the previous day. His ugly, discoloured hands were ungloved; his boots were of some dull, indescribable material which seemed to have escaped the attentions of the valet; his flannel shirt was of the style and pattern displayed in Strand establishments which cater for the unæsthetic. He had discarded his hat for a black cloth cap and he had developed a habit of muttering to himself. Lavendale pressed the accelerator of his car and increased its pace.

'I suppose I've made a fool of myself,' he muttered.

They reached the open country and drew up in due time before the lodge gates of what seemed to be a very large estate. There was no sign as yet of the General. Mr. Hurn descended briskly and at once embarked upon a survey of the neighbourhood. Lavendale lit a cigarette and paused to watch the approach of a great limousine car rushing up the hill. It passed them in a cloud of dust,--he stood staring after it. Notwithstanding the closed windows, he had caught a glimpse of a face, of eyes gazing with strained intentness out on to his side of the road--the face of a woman convulsed with urgency--the woman who had played such queer havoc with his thoughts. Almost at the same moment there was a rasping voice in his ear.

'Say, Mr. Lavendale, there's just one thing I ought to have warned you people about, you don't want any spectators to this show. There ain't no one on this earth has seen what you are going to see.'

Lavendale was conscious of a queer flash of premonition. They three--the girl, the crazy little American and he himself--at this critical moment seemed to have come once more together. What was the girl doing out here? Could her appearance really be fortuitous? The little man's warning became automatically associated with this unexpected glimpse of her. Then, with a returning impulse of sanity, Lavendale brushed his suspicions on one side.

'There'll only be farm labourers within sight, anyway,' he remarked. 'You see, no one could have known that we were coming here.'

'That may be so or it mayn't,' Mr. Hurn replied dryly. 'Anyway, I guess this is the boss coming along.'

An open touring car, driven by a man in khaki, drew up at the lodge gate. General Bembridge descended briskly and came towards them, followed by Captain Merrill.

'Glad to see you are punctual, Mr. Hurn,' he said. 'Now, if you please, I am at your disposal for a quarter of an hour. What is it that you have brought to show me?'

'That's all right, General,' Mr. Hurn replied affably. 'You don't need to worry. I've been taking my fixings round here. Just step this way.'

He shambled along across the turf. The others followed him, the General walking by Lavendale's side.

'Hasn't your friend brought any apparatus to show us?' he inquired irritably. 'What's he going to do?'

'Heaven knows, sir!' Lavendale replied. 'He has told me nothing. If it weren't for those letters he showed you, I should have thought he was a lunatic.'

Mr. Hurn assembled the little party about twenty-five yards ahead of a fringe of trees which bordered the road-side and terminated after a slight break in a compact little spinney. He turned to Captain Merrill.

'Say, young man,' he suggested, 'you just hop round the other side and make sure there's no one about.'

Merrill, in obedience to a glance from the General, hurried off. The latter turned towards Mr. Hurn.

'You are leaving us very much in the dark, sir, he remarked. 'What is it that you propose to attempt?'

'I propose to accomplish on a small scale,' Mr. Hurn said grandiloquently, 'a work of destruction which you can repeat upon any scale you choose. See here.'

With the utmost solemnity he drew from his pocket a schoolboy's ordinary catapult and a pill-box. From the latter he selected a pellet a little smaller than a marble. He fitted it carefully into the back of the catapult. Captain Merrill, who had completed his tour of the spinney, returned.

'There is no one about, sir,' he announced.

Mr. Hurn had suddenly the air of a man who attempts great deeds. His attitude, as he stepped forward, was almost theatrical. The General had become very stern and was obviously annoyed. Lavendale's heart was sinking fast. He was already trying to think out some form of apology for his share in what he felt had developed into a ridiculous fiasco. Nevertheless, their eyes were all riveted upon the strange little figure a few feet in front of them. Slowly he drew back the elastic of the catapult and discharged the pellet. It struck a tree inside the spinney and there was immediately a curious report, which sounded more like a slow muttering of human pain than an ordinary detonation. Mr. Hurn pointed towards the spinney. There were great things in his attitude and in his gesture. A queer, very faint, grey smoke seemed to be stealing through the place. There was a sound like the splitting of branches amongst the trees, the shrill death cries of terrified animals. The General would have moved forward, but Mr. Hurn caught him by the belt.

'Stay where you are, all of you,' he ordered. 'The place ain't safe yet.'

The wonder began to grow upon them. The various shades of green in the spinney seemed suddenly, before their eyes, to change into a universal smoke-coloured ashen-grey. Without any cause that they could see, the bark began to fall away from many of the trees, as though unseen hands were engaged in some gruesome task of devastation. The little party stood there, spellbound, watching this mysterious cataclysm. Mr. Hurn glanced at his watch.

'You can follow me now,' he directed. 'With this strong westerly wind you won't need respirators, but breathe as quietly as you can.'

They followed him to the edge of the spinney. There was not one of them who was not absolutely dumbfounded. Every shred of colour had passed from the foliage, the undergrowth and the hedges. Flowers and weeds, every living thing, were the same ashen colour. The ground on which their footsteps fell broke away as though the life had been sapped from it. There were two rabbits, a dead cock pheasant, the glory of his plumage turned into a sickly grey, and a dozen smaller birds, all of the same ashen shade. Lavendale kicked one of them. It crumbled into pieces as though it were the fossil of some creature a thousand years old.

'The pellet which I discharged from the catapult,' Mr. Hurn announced, in his queer, squeaky voice, 'contained two grains of my preparation. Shells can be made to contain a thousand grains. I reckon that this spinney is eighty yards in area. I will guarantee to you that within that eighty yards there is not alive, at the present moment, any bird or insect or animal of any kind or description. Just as they have died, so would have any human being who had been within this area, have passed away. The rest is a matter of the multiplication table.'

'But will your invention bear the shock of being fired from a gun?' the General asked eagerly.

'That is all arranged for,' Mr. Hurn replied. 'I have some trial shells here. The powder, which is my invention, is of two sorts, separated in the shell by a partition. They are absolutely harmless until concussion breaks down that division. This little matter,' he added, waving his hand upon that scene of hideous desolation, 'is like the bite of a flea. A dozen boys with catapults could destroy a division. With two batteries of guns, General, you could destroy ten miles of trenches and a hundred thousand men.'

They walked around the spinney, still a little dazed with the wonder of it. Suddenly Lavendale gave a little cry. Out in the field on the other side lay the motionless body of a woman. They all hurried towards it.

'I thought you came round here, Merrill!' the General exclaimed.

'I did, sir,' the young officer replied. 'There wasn't a soul in sight.'

Lavendale was the first to reach the prostrate figure. Almost before he stooped to gaze into her face, he recognized her. There were little flecks of grey upon her dress and she was ghastly pale. Her eyes, however, were open, and she was struggling helplessly to move.

'I am all right,' she assured them feebly. 'Has any one--any brandy?'

She tried to sit up, but she was obviously on the point of collapse. Mr. Hurn pushed his way to her side. From another pill-box which he had withdrawn from his pocket, he took out a small pellet and forced it unceremoniously through her teeth.

'I invented an antidote whilst I was about it,' he explained. 'Had to keep on taking it myself when I was experimenting. She's only got a touch of it. She'll be all right in five minutes. What I should like to know is,' he concluded suspiciously, 'what the devil she was doing here, any way.'

The recovery of the young lady was almost magical. She first sat up. Then, with the help of Lavendale's hand, she rose easily to her feet. She pointed to the spinney.

'What on earth is this awful thing?' she faltered.

No one spoke for a minute.

'What were you doing round here, young lady?' Mr. Hurn asked bluntly.

She looked at him with her big, innocent eyes as though surprised.

'I was motoring along the road,' she explained, 'when I saw you stop,' she went on, turning towards the General. 'I remembered that I had heard there was to be a review here. I thought I might see something of it.'

There was a silence.

'Perhaps,' Merrill suggested, 'the young lady will give us her name and address?'

She raised her eyebrows slightly.

'But willingly,' she answered. 'I am Miss Suzanne de Freyne, and my address is at the Milan Court. I haven't done anything wrong, have I?'

'Nothing at all,' Lavendale assured her hastily. 'It's we who feel guilty.'

'But what does it all mean?' she demanded, a little pathetically. 'I was just walking across the field when suddenly that happened. I felt as though all the strength were going out of my body. I didn't exactly suffocate, but it was just as though I was swallowing something which stopped in my throat.'

'Capital!' Mr. Hurn exclaimed, his face beaming. 'Most interesting! Perhaps, after all,' he went on complacently, 'if we may take it for granted that the young lady's presence is entirely accidental, her experience is not without some interest to us.'

'But will no one tell me what it means?' she persisted.

There was a silence. Lavendale was suddenly oppressed by a queer foreboding. The General took Miss de Freyne courteously by the arm and led her on one side. He pointed with his riding whip to the gate where the limousine was standing.

'Young lady,' he said, 'Captain Merrill here will take you back to your car. You will confer a great obligation upon every one here, and upon your country, if you allow this little incident to pass from your mind.'

She laughed softly. Her eyes seemed to be seeking for something in Lavendale's face which she failed to find. Then she turned away with a shrug of the shoulders and glanced up at Captain Merrill.

'I am not a prisoner, am I?' she asked. 'Let me assure you all,' she declared, with a little wave of farewell, 'that I never want to think of this hateful spot again.'

They watched her pass through the gate and enter the car which was standing in the road.

'Does any one know her?' the General inquired.

'She was at the next table to Mr. Hurn here when I spoke to him at the Milan,' Lavendale observed thoughtfully. 'She was listening to our conversation. It may be a coincidence, but it seems strange that she should have been on our heels just at this particular moment.'

The General passed his arm through Mr. Hurn's.

'The Intelligence Department shall make a few inquiries,' he promised. 'As for you, my dear sir, our positions are now reversed. My time is yours. I will find another opportunity to inspect these troops. Will you return with me to the War Office at once?'

'Right away,' Mr. Hurn assented. 'And, General,' he went on, swaggering a little as he shambled along by the side of the tall, alert, military figure--queerest contrast in the world--'give me a factory--one of your ordinary factories will do, all your ordinary appliances will do, but give me control of it for one month and you can invite me to Berlin to the peace signing.'

* * * * *

At about half-past eight that evening, after having waited about for some time in the hall of the Milan Grill-room, Lavendale handed his coat and hat to the vestiaire and passed into the crowded restaurant. A young man of excellent poise and balance, he was almost bewildered at his own sensations as he elbowed his way through the throng of waiters and passers-by. At the corner of the glass screen he paused. The girl was there, seated at the same table, with a newspaper propped up in front of her. Her black hair seemed glossier than ever; her face, unshadowed by any hat, a little more pallid and forceful. A fur coat had fallen back from her white shoulders. She seemed to be wholly absorbed in the paper in front of her.

'A table, monsieur?' a soft voice murmured at his elbow.

Lavendale shook off his abstraction and glanced reluctantly away.

'I am dining with Mr. Hurn, Jules,' he replied. 'He said eight o'clock, but I can't see anything of him.'

Jules pointed to a table close at hand, evidently reserved for two people. There were _hors d'oeuvres_ waiting and a bottle of wine upon the ice.

'Mr. Hurn ordered dinner for eight o'clock punctually, sir,' he announced. 'I have been expecting him in for some time.'

The girl, as though attracted by their voices, had raised her eyes. She looked towards the unoccupied table by the side of which Jules was standing. The three of them for a moment seemed to have concentrated their regard upon the same spot, and Lavendale was conscious of a queer little emotion, an unanalyzable foreboding.

'The gentleman ordered a very excellent dinner,' Jules observed. 'I have already sent back the cocktails twice.'

Lavendale glanced at the clock. Almost at the same time his eyes met the girl's. There was a quiver of recognition in her face. He took instant advantage of it and moved towards her.

'You are quite recovered, I trust, Miss de Freyne?'

She raised her eyes to his. Again he felt that sense of baffling impenetrability. It was impossible even to know whether she appreciated or resented his question.

'I am quite recovered, thank you,' she said. 'You have seen nothing more of our queer little friend?'

'Nothing at all,' she told him.

'He invited me to dine with him,' Lavendale explained, 'at eight o'clock punctually. I have been waiting outside for nearly half an hour.'

She glanced at the clock and Lavendale, with a little bow, passed on.

'Perhaps he meant me to go up to his room,' he remarked, addressing Jules. 'Do you know his number?'

'Eighty-nine in the Court, sir,' the man replied. 'Shall I send up?'

'I'll go myself,' Lavendale decided.

Jules bowed and, although Lavendale did not glance around, he felt that the girl's eyes as well as the man's followed him to the door. He rang for the lift and ascended to the fourth floor, made his way down the corridor and paused before number eighty-nine. He knocked at the door--there was no reply. Then he tried the handle, which yielded at once to his touch. Inside all was darkness. He turned on the electric light and pushed open the door of the sitting-room just in front.

'Mr. Hurn!' he exclaimed, raising his voice.

There was still no reply,--a strange, brooding silence which seemed to possess subtle qualities of mystery and apprehension. Lavendale had all the courage and unshaken nerves of youth and yet at that moment he was afraid. His groped along the wall for the switch and found it with an impulse of relief. The room was flooded with soft light--Lavendale's hand seemed glued to the little brass knob. He stood there with his back to the wall, his face set, speechless. Mr. Daniel H. Hurn was seated in an easy-chair in what appeared at first to be a natural attitude. His head, however, had fallen back, and from his neck drooped the long end of a silken cord. Lavendale took one step forward and then paused again. The man's face was visible now--white, ghastly, with wide-open, sightless eyes....

The valet, who was passing down the corridor, paused and looked in at the door.

'Is there anything wrong, sir?' he asked.

Lavendale seemed to come back with a rush into the world of real things. He withdrew the key from the door, stepped outside and locked it.

'You had better take that to the manager,' he said. 'I will wait outside here. Tell him to come at once.'

'Anything wrong, sir?' the valet repeated.

Lavendale nodded.

'The man there in the chair is dead!' he whispered.

Chapter II

The Lost Formula

The two young men stood side by side before the window of the Milan smoke-room--Ambrose Lavendale, the American, and his friend Captain Merrill from the War Office. Directly opposite to them was a narrow street running down to the Embankment, at the foot of which they could catch a glimpse of the river. A little to the left was a dark and melancholy building with a number of sightless windows.

'Wonder what sort of people live in that place?' Merrill asked curiously. 'Milan Mansions they call it, don't they?'

The other nodded.

'Gloomy sort of barracks,' he remarked. 'I've never seen even a face at the window.'

'There's a new experience for you, then,' Merrill observed, pointing a little forward,--'a girl's face, too.'

Lavendale was stonily silent, yet when the momentarily raised curtain had fallen he gave a little gasp. It could have been no hallucination. The face, transfigured though it was, in a sense, by its air of furtiveness, was, without a doubt, the face of the girl who had been constantly in his thoughts for the last three weeks. He counted the windows carefully from the ground, noted the exact position of the room and passed his arm through his friend's.

'Come along, Reggie,' he said.

'Where to?'

'Don't ask any questions,' Lavendale begged. 'Just wait.'

They left the hotel by an unfrequented way, Lavendale half a dozen paces ahead. Merrill ventured upon a mild protest.

'Look here, old chap,' he complained, 'you might tell me where we are off to?'

Lavendale slackened his speed for a moment to explain.

'To that room,' he declared. 'Didn't you recognize the girl's face?'

Merrill shook his head.

'I scarcely noticed it.'

'It was the girl whom we found unconscious, half poisoned by that fellow Hurn's diabolical invention,' Lavendale explained. 'She wasn't there by accident, either. I caught her listening in the Milan Grill-room when Hurn was talking to me, and the day after the inquest she disappeared.'

Merrill laid a hand upon his friend's arm.

'Even if this is so, Lavendale,' he expostulated, 'she probably doesn't want us bothering over here. What are you going to say to her? Pretty sort of asses we shall look if we blunder in upon her like this.'

Lavendale continued to climb the stairs. By this time they had reached the second landing.

'If you feel that way about it, Merrill,' he said, 'you can wait for me--or clear out altogether, if you like. I want to have a few words with this young lady, and I am going to have them.'

Merrill sighed.

'I'll see you through it, Ambrose,' he grumbled. 'All the same, I'm not at all sure that we are not making fools of ourselves.'

They mounted yet another flight. A crazy lift went lumbering past them up to the top of the building. Lavendale paused outside a door near the end of the passage.

'This should be the one,' he announced.

He rang a bell. They could hear it pealing inside, but there was no response. Once more he pressed the button. This time it seemed to them both that its shrill summons was ringing through empty spaces. There was no sound of any movement within. The door of the next flat, however, opened. A tall, rather stout man, very untidily dressed, with pale, unwholesome face and a mass of ill-arranged hair, looked out.

'Sir,' he said, 'it is no use ringing that bell. The only purpose you serve is to disturb me at my labours. The flat is empty.'

'Are you quite sure about that?' Lavendale asked.

'Absolutely!'

'How was it, then, that I saw a face at one of the windows a quarter of an hour ago?' Lavendale demanded.

'You are mistaken, sir,' was the grim reply. 'The thing is impossible. The porter who has the letting of the flat is only on duty in the afternoon, and, as a special favour to the proprietors, I have the keys here.'

'Then with your permission I will borrow them,' Lavendale observed. 'I am looking for rooms in this neighbourhood.'

The man bowed and threw open the door.

'Come in, sir,' he invited pompously. 'I will fetch the keys for you. My secretary,' he added, with a little wave of his hand, pointing to a florid, over-buxom and untidy-looking woman who was struggling with an ancient typewriter. 'You find me hard at work trying to finish a play I have been commissioned to write for my friend Tree. You are aware, perhaps, of my--er--identity?'

'I am sorry,' Lavendale replied. 'You see, I am an American, not a Londoner.'

'That,' the other declared, 'accounts for it. My name is Somers-Keyne--Hamilton Somers-Keyne. My work, I trust, is more familiar to you than my personality?'

'Naturally,' Lavendale assented, a little vaguely.

The dramatist, who had been searching upon a mantelpiece which seemed littered with cigarette ends, scraps of letters and an empty tumbler or so, suddenly turned around with the key in his hand.

'It is here,' he pronounced. 'Examine the rooms for yourself, Mr.----?'

'Lavendale.'

'Mr. Lavendale. They are furnished, I believe, but as regards the rent I know nothing except that the myrmidon who collects it is unpleasantly persistent in his attentions. If you will return the key to me, sir, when you have finished, I shall be obliged.'

'Certainly,' Lavendale promised.

The two young men opened the door and explored a dusty, barely-furnished, gloomy, conventional little suite, consisting of a single bedroom, a boxlike sitting-room, and a bathroom in the last stages of dilapidation. The rooms were undoubtedly empty, nor was there anywhere any sign of recent habitation. Lavendale stood at the window, leaned over and counted. When he drew back his face was more than ever puzzled. He looked once more searchingly around the unprepossessing rooms.

'This was the window, Reggie,' he insisted.

Merrill had lost interest in the affair and did not hesitate to show it.

'Seems to me you must have counted wrongly,' he declared. 'In any case, there's no one here now, and it's quite certain that no one has been in during the last hour or so.'

Lavendale said nothing for a moment. He examined the flat once more carefully, locked it up, and took the key back to Mr. Somers-Keyne's room. The dramatist opened the door himself.

'You were favourably impressed, I trust, with the rooms?' he inquired, holding out his hand for the key.

'I am not sure,' Lavendale replied. 'Tell me, how long is it since any one occupied them?'

'They are dusted and swept once a week,' Mr. Somers-Keyne told him, looking closely at his questioner from underneath his puffy eyelids, 'and they may have been shown occasionally to a prospective tenant. Otherwise, no one has been in them for nearly a month.'

'No one could have been in them this morning, then?'

'Absolutely impossible,' was the confident answer. 'The keys have not been off my shelf.'

'We must not interrupt you further,' Lavendale declared. 'I shall apply for a first night seat when your production is presented, Mr. Somers-Keyne.'

'You are very good, sir,' the other acknowledged. 'Your face, I may say, is familiar to me as a patron of the theatre. What are the chances, may I inquire, of your taking up your residence in this building?'

'I have not made up my mind,' Lavendale replied. 'There are some other particulars I must have. I shall call and interview the hall-porter this afternoon.'

'If a welcome, sir, from your nearest neighbour is any inducement,' Mr. Somers-Keyne pronounced, 'let me offer it to you. My secretary, too, Miss Brown--I think I mentioned Miss Brown's name?--is often nervous with an empty flat next door. I am out a great deal in the evening, Mr. Lavendale. My work demands a constant study of the most modern methods of dramatic production. You follow me, I am sure?'

'Absolutely,' Lavendale assured him. 'By the by, sir, we are returning for a moment or two to the bar at the Milan. If you will accompany us----'

Mr. Somers-Keyne was already reaching out for his hat.

'With the utmost pleasure, my dear young friends,' he consented. 'The Milan bar was at one time a hallowed spot to me. Misfortunes of various sorts--but I will not weary you with a relation of my troubles. If Tree rings up, Flora, say that I shall have finished the second act to-night. You can tell him that it is wonderful. Now, gentlemen!'

They left the building together and a few moments later were ensconced in a corner of the bar with a bottle of whisky and some tumblers before them. Lavendale helped his guest bountifully. He had hard work, however, to keep the trend of the conversation away from the subject of Mr. Somers-Keyne's early triumphs upon the stage, which it appeared were numerous and remarkable. With every tumblerful of whisky and soda, indeed, he seemed to grow more forgetful of his home across the way. As he expanded he grew more untidy. His tie slipped, his collar had flown open, his waistcoat was spotted with the liquid which had fallen from the glass in his unsteady efforts to lift it to his lips. His pasty face had become mottled. Lavendale, who had been watching his guest closely, fired a sudden question at him.

'You don't happen to know a Miss de Freyne, do you?' he inquired innocently.

The change in the man was wonderful. From a state of maudlin amiability he seemed to be stricken with an emotion of either fear or anger. His eyes narrowed. He set his glass down almost steadily, although he was obliged to breathe heavily several times before he spoke.

'Miss de Freyne,' he repeated. 'What about her?'

Lavendale pointed towards the window behind them.

'Nothing except that when I was in here an hour ago I saw Miss de Freyne's face at the window of that empty suite next to yours,' he said.

Mr. Somers-Keyne rose to his feet. A splendid dignity guided his footsteps and kept his voice steady.

'Sir,' he pronounced, 'I am able to surmise now the reason for your excessive hospitality. I wish you good morning!'

He turned towards the door.

'Mr. Somers-Keyne,' Lavendale began, rising hastily to his feet----

The dramatist waved him away. His gesture, if a little theatrical, was final. The honours remained with him....

Lavendale, a few minutes later, on his way to his luncheon-table in the grill-room, threw his accustomed glance across the room towards the corner which was still possessed of a peculiar interest for him. He paused in the act of taking his place. At her same table, with a little pile of manuscript propped up in front of her, Miss de Freyne was seated, studying the luncheon menu. For a moment he hesitated. Then he rose to his feet and, crossing the room, addressed her.

'Miss de Freyne!'

She glanced up in some surprise. She seemed, indeed, scarcely to recognize him.

'You have not forgotten me, I hope?' he continued. 'My name is Lavendale.'

'Of course,' she assented slowly. 'You were the friend of that strange little creature with the marvellous invention, weren't you?'

'I was scarcely his friend,' Lavendale corrected, 'but I did my best to help him.'

She made a pencil mark in the margin of the manuscript and laid it face downwards upon the table. Then she leaned back in her chair and looked at him.

'Tell me what happened?' she begged. 'I was obliged to leave London the next day and I have only just returned. Was it suicide or murder?'

'The man was murdered, without a doubt,' Lavendale replied.

'Is that so, really?' she asked gravely. 'Tell me, had he given over his formula to the War Office?'

Lavendale sighed.

'Unfortunately no! He was to have handed it over at eleven o'clock the next morning.'

'Was it found amongst his effects?'

'Not a written line of any sort.'

'Is any one suspected?' she inquired, dropping her voice a little.

Lavendale hesitated and glanced cautiously around.

'Scarcely that,' he answered, 'but you remember the man Jules, the _maîtres d'hôtel_ here?'

She nodded.

'A Swiss, wasn't he? I was just wondering what had become of him.

'During the investigations the next day,' Lavendale continued, 'it was discovered that his papers were forged and that he was in reality an Austrian. He was interned at once, of course, and I believe there was a certain amount of secrecy about his movements on that night. So far as I know, though, nothing has been discovered.'

She raised her eyebrows deprecatingly.

'The detective system over here,' she remarked, 'is sometimes hopeless, isn't it?'

'Yet in one respect,' Lavendale pointed out, 'they certainly were prompt on that night. I understand that Jules was interned within an hour of the discovery of the murder.'

Miss de Freyne drew her manuscript towards her with a little shrug of the shoulders.

'They failed to find the formula, though,' she reminded him.

Lavendale, accepting his dismissal, returned to his place, finished his lunch and made his way round to the Milan Mansions. A caretaker was established now in his office in the hall. He was a small and rather melancholy-looking man, who hastily concealed a blackened pipe as Lavendale entered.

'I understand that you have a suite to let,' the latter began, 'upon the third floor?'

The man pulled out a list.

'We have several suites to let, sir,' he replied; 'nothing upon the third floor, though.'

'What about number thirty-two?'

The caretaker shook his head.

'Number thirty-two is let, sir.'

'Are you sure?' Lavendale persisted. 'I called this morning and was allowed to look over it by Mr. Somers-Keyne, who had the keys.'

'It was taken by a young lady just before one o'clock, at our head office,' the man told him. 'With regard to the other suites, sir----'

'Could you tell me the young lady's name?' Lavendale interrupted.

'I haven't heard it yet,' the man answered shortly. 'With regard to the other suites----'

Lavendale slipped a coin into his hand.

'Thank you,' he said, 'there is no other suite in which I am interested for the moment.'

He stepped out. Almost on the threshold he met Miss de Freyne, face to face.

'Are you coming,' he asked, raising his hat, 'to take possession of your new abode?'

She was entirely at her ease. She looked at him, however, a little curiously. It was as though she were trying to make an appreciative estimate of him in her mind.

'I suppose,' she observed, with a little sigh, 'that we are playing at cross-purposes. You are an American, are you not, Mr. Lavendale?'

'I am,' he answered.

'German-American?'

'No!'

'English-American?'

'No!'

'What then?'

'American.'

'Tell me exactly what that means?' she insisted.

'It means that my sympathies are concentrated upon my own country,' he answered. 'Those prefixes--German-American or English-American--are misnomers. Wherever my personal sympathies may be, my patriotism overshadows them. Now you know the truth about me. I am an American for America.'

She sighed.

'Yes,' she murmured, 'I had an idea that was your point of view. I am a Frenchwoman, you see, for France.'

'Our interests,' he remarked, 'should not be far apart.'

'If I were sure of that,' she declared, 'the rest would be easy. I am for France and for France only. You are for America, and, I am afraid, for America only.'

'Chance, in this instance,' he ventured, 'has at any rate made us allies.'

'I should like to feel quite sure about that,' she said. 'If you are not busy, will you walk with me on to the Embankment?'

They strolled down the narrow street and found a seat in the gardens.

'Between thieves,' she continued, looking him in the face, 'there is sometimes honour. Why not amongst those who are engaged upon affairs which, if not nefarious, are at least secret? Let us see whether we can be allies, and, if not, where our interests clash. You know perfectly well, as I do, that Jules murdered that little chemist from Chicago and stole the formula. You know very well that the suite in which you take so much interest in the Milan Mansions, belongs to Jules. You know very well that he was arrested there a quarter of an hour after he left the hotel, and that he had had no time to dispose of the formula. You know that the place has been searched, inch by inch, but that the formula has not been found.'

'I have just arrived exactly as far as that myself,' Lavendale assented mendaciously.

'You are some time behind me, but it is true that we have arrived at the same point,' she continued. 'Now the question is, can we work together? What should you do with the formula if ever it came into your possession?'

His lips tightened.

'I cannot tell you that,' he said firmly.

'I believe that I know,' she went on. 'Well, let me put you to the test.'

She opened a black silk bag which she was carrying, a little trifle with white velvet lining and turquoise clasp. From a very dainty pocket-book in the interior she drew out a crumpled sheet of paper, covered with strange, cabalistic signs. She smoothed it out upon her knee and handed it to him.

'Well,' she exclaimed, 'there it is! Now you shall tell me what you are going to do with it?'

His hand had closed over the piece of paper. He gripped it firmly. Before she could stop him he had transferred it to his own pocket. She shrugged her shoulders.

'You had better return it to me,' she advised.

'I shall not,' he replied. 'Forgive me. I did not ask you for the formula--I did not know you had discovered it--but since I have it, I want you to remember that it was the discovery of an American and I shall keep it for my country.'

'But your country is not in need of anything of the sort,' she protested.

'I will be so far frank with you as to explain my motive,' he said. 'A few months ago I was attached to the American Embassy here. I have been attached to the Embassy in Paris, and for two months I was in Berlin. I have come to certain conclusions about America, in which I differ entirely from the popular opinion and the popular politics of my country. England has been living for many years in great peril, but there have been many who have recognized that. The peril of America is at least as great, and has remained almost altogether unrecognized. We have no army, a small navy, an immense seaboard, wealth sufficient to excite the cupidity of any nation. And we have no allies. We make the grave and serious mistake of ignoring world politics, of believing ourselves outside them and yet imagining ourselves capable of protecting the interests of American citizens in foreign countries. That is where I know we are wrong. I have resigned from the Diplomatic Service of America but I remain her one secret agent. I intend to keep this formula for her. She will need it.'

Suzanne de Freyne shook her head.

'You will not be able to leave the gardens alive with it,' she assured him.

He glanced at her incredulously. Her smooth face was unwrinkled. She had the air of looking at him as though he were a child.

'You are in the kindergarten stage of your profession,' she observed. 'Now watch. You see those two men seated on the bench a little way further down?'

'Well?'

She rose from her seat, shook out her skirt and sat down again. The two men, also, had risen and were advancing towards them. She held up her hand--they seemed somehow to drift away.

'I repeat,' she went on, 'that you would not leave this garden alive. But, my friend, we will not quarrel over a worthless scrap of paper, for that is precisely what you have carefully buttoned up in your pocket-book. I have failed to find the formula. That is a dummy. Keep it, if you will. There isn't a single intelligible sign upon it.'

He drew it from his pocket and glanced at it. Even with his slight knowledge of chemistry he was compelled to admit that her words were truth.

'Keep it or give it me back, as you like,' she continued. 'It has no value. The fact remains that in his brief journey from the service room at the Milan Grill-room to his rooms in the Milan Mansions, Jules managed to conceal somewhere or other the paper which he has taken from Hurn. If he passed it on to some one else, it is by this time in Germany, but we have reason to know that he did not. The paper is still in concealment. It is still to be found.'

'And the means?' he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders lightly.

'Alas!' she exclaimed, 'how can I tell you now? How can I even engage your help? You have disclosed your hand.'

He sat gazing gloomily out at the river.

'Very well,' he decided at last, 'let me help and I will be content with a copy of the formula.'

She smiled.

'That is rather sensible of you,' she said. 'To tell you the truth, I require your help. For reasons which I need not explain, we do not wish this matter to be dealt with in any way officially. I am in perfect accord with the English Secret Service, but we do not wish to have their men seen about the Milan Mansions. To-night, Jules re-enters into possession of his rooms. I offer you an adventure. It is what you wish?'

'But I thought Jules was interned?'

'He was and is,' she told him, 'but the greater powers are working. This afternoon he will be permitted to escape--he thinks through the agency of friends. He will come to London in a motor-car, he will come at once to his rooms, and, although every inch of them has been searched, I am perfectly convinced that somewhere in them or between them and the Milan, he will lay his hands upon the formula. You care about this adventure?'

His eyes flashed.

'Care about it!' he repeated enthusiastically.

She smiled and rose to her feet.

'Leave me now,' she begged. 'I want to speak to one of those men for a minute. You can dine with me in the Grill-room at the Milan at seven o'clock, in morning clothes. Till then, _au revoir!_'

* * * * *

The spirit of adventure warmed Lavendale's blood that night. He ordered his dinner with unusual care, and he was delighted to find his guest sufficiently human to appreciate the delicacies he had chosen and the vintage of the champagne which he had selected. Their conversation was entirely general, almost formal. They had both lived for some time in Paris and found mutual acquaintances there. As they neared the conclusion of the meal she was summoned to the telephone. She was absent only for a short time but when she returned she began to collect her few trifles.

'The car passed through Slough,' she said, 'a quarter of an hour ago. I think perhaps we had better be moving.'

Lavendale signed his bill and they left the hotel together.

'Nothing else you think you ought to tell me, I suppose?' he remarked, as they crossed the narrow street. 'I am rather in the dark, you know. The idea is, isn't it, that Jules is coming up to get the formula from some hiding-place in his room? Where shall we be?'

'Wait,' she begged.

They climbed the stairs in silence--the girl had purposely avoided the lift. Arrived on the third floor, she passed the door of number thirty-two and knocked softly at the adjoining one. There was, for a moment, no answer. At the second summons, however, the door was cautiously opened. The untidy secretary admitted them. In her soiled black dress, shapeless and crumpled, with her fat, peevish face and dishevelled peroxidized hair, she was by no means an attractive object. She pointed half indignantly to where Mr. Somers-Keyne was lying upon the couch, gazing towards them in incapable silence with a fatuous smile upon his lips.

'If it's from you he gets the money for this sort of thing,' she said sharply, 'why, I wish you'd keep it, and that's straight. How are we to get on with our work or anything, with him in that condition?'

'Scondition'sh all right,' Mr. Somers-Keyne insisted, making a weak effort to rise.

Miss de Freyne frowned for a moment as she appreciated the situation. Then she waved him back.

'Don't try to get up, Mr. Somers-Keyne, she begged. 'We can manage without you. Lie down and rest for a little time.'

Mr. Somers-Keyne sank back with a sigh of content.

'Very shorry,' he murmured. 'Tree'sh awfully annoyed with me. Promished go down and shee him sh'evening.'

'Is this fellow one of your helpers?' Lavendale asked.

She nodded.

'In a small way. Never mind, we don't need him to-night. Come here.'

She led him to the side of the wall nearest the adjoining apartment. Her fingers felt about the pattern of the paper. Presently she found a crack, pushed for a moment and a sliding door rolled back. She stretched out her hand through the darkness and turned a small knob. A wardrobe door swung outwards. They looked into the shadowy obscurity of the adjoining room. Lavendale whistled softly.

'This is all very well,' he said, 'but how can we watch Jules whilst the door is closed?'

She pointed to two or three little ventilation holes near the top of the wardrobe. Lavendale applied his eye to one of them and nodded.

'That's all right,' he admitted. 'There's just enough light. Listen!'

They could both of them hear the quick, eager footsteps of a man lightly shod, stealthy, ascending the last flight of stairs. Her fingers gripped his arm for a moment. An excitement more poignant than any begotten by their hazardous adventure suddenly thrilled him. The greatest adventure of all was at hand....

The footsteps paused, the door slowly opened. It was Jules who entered. He stood looking around for a moment, then unexpectedly fingered the switch which stood upon the wall. The apartment was flooded with light. Jules stood in the centre of it, distinctly visible. He was paler even than usual, and his eyes were a little sunken, but he had lost, somehow or other, that bearing of graceful servility which had distinguished him in his former avocation. An expression of subdued cunning had taken its place. He looked around the apartment searchingly. His eyes rested for a moment upon a small print at the further end of the room, which was hanging upon the wall in a crooked position. As his eyes fell upon it, he frowned. He seemed suddenly to stiffen into a new attention. He glanced once more around him as though in fear and picked up his overcoat from the bed. Before they could realize what his intentions were, he had left the room, closing the door behind him.

'What does that mean?' Lavendale whispered.

She pushed open the wardrobe door. A little breath of fresher air was grateful to both of them. Then she turned and pointed towards the opposite wall.

'It was that print,' she murmured. 'It must have been a signal to him that he was being watched. You see, it is on one side. I am perfectly certain that when I was here this morning it was straight.'

'A signal from whom?'

She had no time to answer him. They could hear the door of the next room open. Their eyes met.

'Mr. Somers-Keyne!' he exclaimed.

They stepped back into the wardrobe. Her fingers felt for the spring. Suddenly they both heard, within a few inches of them, on the other side of the wall, the sound of a click. She pressed the spring in vain. Then she stepped back and turned on the electric light in the room.

'Try the door,' she whispered.

Lavendale tried it. As they both expected, it was locked. She drew a master-key from her pocket and opened it swiftly. They were out in the corridor now, empty and silent. They could not even hear the sound of any one moving about in Mr. Somers-Keyne's room. Lavendale stood before the latter's door and listened. There was a mumbling as though of smothered voices, then suddenly an angry exclamation.

'Sick of the lot of you, that's what I am! Here's the old man dictates his rubbish for about an hour a day and talks drivelling, drunken piffle for the rest of it! Where's my salary coming from, that's what I want to know?'

They heard Jules apparently trying to soothe her.

'My dear Miss Brown, in a few days, if you will only be patient----'

'Patient! Who's going to be patient with that old drunkard blithering around all the time? I've had enough!'

They heard the sound of stamping footsteps and Mr. Somers-Keyne's sonorous voice.

'Flora, my dear, mosht unreasonable, I'm sure. Shimply asked you go out for a few minutes while Mr. Jules and I dishcuss important matter.'

'And I'm going out for a minute,' Miss Brown shouted, suddenly opening the door, 'and you may thank your stars when you see me again!'

She appeared upon the threshold, holding a slatternly hat upon her head with one hand and sticking hatpins in with the other. She stared insolently at Lavendale and his companion, and brushed her way past them.

'Here's visitors for you,' she called out over her shoulder. 'You'll have to get rid of them now before you start on your precious business.'

She flopped down the stairs. The newcomers stepped across the threshold. Jules stared at them in surprise. Mr. Somers-Keyne nodded his head ponderously. His mind seemed to be still running upon Miss Brown's departure.

'A mosht ungrateful young woman,' he declared. 'Mish--er--de Freyne, your shervant. Thish gentleman is the tenant of the roomsh you looked over other day. Mr. Lavendale, don't like you. Don't want you here. Ashked me questions about you, Mish de Freyne. Not a nice young man at all. You lishen to me a moment.'

He staggered to his feet. Jules stood in the background. There was something of the old obsequiousness about his manner. Mr. Somers-Keyne swayed for a moment upon his feet. Then Lavendale felt a sudden inspiration. He turned on his heel.

'Excuse me for one moment,' he whispered to the girl by his side.

He turned away with no show of haste, though the eyes of both men seemed to follow him. Then he ran down the stairs on tiptoe, taking them three at a time as he neared the ground floor. The motor-car was drawn up outside, there was no sign of any one else in the street. He sprang to the other side of the way and saw at once the object of his pursuit, hurrying down towards the Embankment. He followed her as stealthily as possible. Without looking around she increased her own pace, crossed the Embankment and leaned for a moment over the wall. A few yards further on were the steps and a little pier, and close by a small tug was waiting. Lavendale, who was within reach of her now, stretched out his hand and seized her shoulder.

'I want you, Miss Brown!' he exclaimed.

She turned and confronted him, her face mottled and flushed with the unusual exercise, a strand of her unwholesome-looking hair hanging down to her shoulder.

'Now what's wrong with you?' she shouted. 'Can't you leave me alone? I'm not coming back.'

'Where are you going?' he asked.

'That's none of your business,' she snapped. 'Let me pass.'

He glanced at the tug and his hand closed upon her wrist. He was a strong man, but she almost succeeded in wrenching herself free.

'Look here, Miss Brown,' he said, 'the game's up. I want that paper you're keeping for Jules.'

She suddenly showed her teeth. Her face was like the face of a wild animal. She struggled so violently that they swayed towards the parapet. Her left hand slipped into the bosom of her gown. Before he could stop her, her fingers were making pulp of the paper which she had drawn up in crushed fragments. She threw it over the parapet into the black water. Then she ceased to struggle. She laughed hysterically and leaned back against the wall. The water near where the fragments of paper had fallen was all churned up--the little tug had hurried off.

'Clever, ain't you?' she mocked. 'Any need to hold on to me any more?'

He released her wrist. The car had come thundering down the little street. It suddenly pulled up with a grinding of brakes. Suzanne sprang lightly out.

'The formula?' she cried.

He pointed downwards to the water.

'Destroyed!'

Her sigh was almost one of relief.

'Was there a tug here?' she asked eagerly.

He nodded.

'It made off when they saw us struggling.'

'He told the truth, then!' she exclaimed. 'Jules shot himself as soon as he realized that the game was up--there in the room before me, a few minutes ago. He told me with his last breath that the formula was on its way down the river to Germany.'

Lavendale smiled grimly.

'It's on its way down the river, right enough,' he assented, 'but I don't think it will reach Germany.'

Chapter III

A Deal With Niko

Lavendale paused in the act of struggling with his tie, and looked steadfastly into the mirror in front of him. He had heard no definite sound, yet some queer intuition seemed to have suddenly awakened within his subconscious mind a sense of the mysterious, something close at hand, unaccountable, minatory. His flat was empty and the catch of the front door secure, yet he knew very well that he was being watched. He turned slowly around.

'What the mischief----'

He broke off in his sentence. A small man, dressed in black clothes, imperturbable, yellow-skinned, and with Oriental type of features, was standing to attention, a clothes-brush in his hand. His dark, oval eyes rested for a moment upon the crumpled failure of Lavendale's tie. Without a word he took another from an open drawer, came softly across the room and reached upwards. Before Lavendale knew what was happening, the bow which had been worrying him for the last five minutes was faultlessly tied. He glanced into the mirror and was compelled to give vent to a little exclamation of satisfaction.

'That's all very well, you know,' he said, turning once more around. 'The tie's all right, but who the devil are you, and what are you doing in my rooms?'

The man bowed. Again the Oriental seemed to assert itself in the subtle ease with which he almost prostrated himself.

'Sir,' he explained, 'I am the friend of your servant Perkins.'

'Then perhaps you can tell me where on earth Perkins is?' Lavendale demanded.

'He is in the hospital, sir,' the man answered. 'He met with a slight accident while he and I were together. I am his messenger. I undertook to bring you news of him and to do what I could, in my poor way, to fill his place for this evening. He lent me his key. It was in that manner I was able to gain entrance here.'

'An accident?' Lavendale repeated. 'What sort of an accident?'

'I chose an idle word, perhaps,' the other confessed. 'It was indeed more a matter of sudden illness. Perkins and I lunched together at the Chinese Restaurant in Piccadilly Circus. As we left the place, he faltered; he fainted in the passage. I called a taxicab and took him to the hospital. It was not a great affair, they said, but it was better that he should rest there. So I came to you.'

'And who the dickens may you be?'

'My name is Niko. I came from Japan with General Kinish, military attaché to the Japanese Embassy. He has gone to the Italian Front and left me without a situation.'

'You're all right at ties, any way,' Lavendale admitted, glancing once more into the mirror. 'All the same, I think I can get along without a man until Perkins comes back.'

His hands sought his trousers pockets but Niko shook his head gravely.

'It is impossible,' he protested. 'Perkins may be away for a week. I shall wait upon you until he returns. It is best.'

'Well, have it your own way,' Lavendale remarked. 'Better answer that bell, then. If it is a lady, show her into the sitting-room.'

Niko glided away and returned in a moment.

'The lady,' he announced, 'is in the sitting-room.'

He held up Lavendale's coat and the latter hastened from the room. Suzanne de Freyne was standing facing the door as he entered, her theatre cloak thrown back. He took her hands.

'You are adorably punctual!' he exclaimed.

'Tell me,' she asked, a little abruptly, 'how long have you had your valet?'

'About five minutes, I believe,' he answered. 'He is a substitute. My own man was taken ill at luncheon-time. Why do you ask?'

'Because he is the first person,' she explained, 'who has succeeded in puzzling me in one particular way since I can remember.'

He looked at her as though for an explanation, and in a moment she continued.

'I flatter myself that I never forget a face. Your valet is perfectly well-known to me and yet I cannot tell you who he is.'

Lavendale glanced uneasily towards the door.

'I shan't keep him,' he said. 'I hate prejudices, but I am full of them. The fellow's a Jap, of course.'

Suzanne did not reply for a moment. Her attention seemed to have suddenly wandered. Then she turned around with a little laugh.

'I am hungry, my friend!' she exclaimed. 'Let us go. And yet, remember this. Temporary servants are bad things for people who follow our profession.'

They left the room. Niko was standing with the front door wide open, his master's hat and gloves in his hand.

'I will be here at seven o'clock in the morning, sir,' he promised, 'and bring news of Perkins.'

Lavendale nodded. The door was closed softly behind them. At the bottom of the stairs he glanced up.

'Wish I could get rid of the ridiculous idea I have about that fellow,' he remarked.

'Is there anything in your rooms of particular--I will not say value, I will say interest?' she inquired.

'I suppose I have the usual amount of valuables,' he admitted, 'but Perkins is a very careful servant, and I am sure he would never have sent any one who wasn't reliable. As regards my papers and that sort of thing, they are all locked up in a safe with a combination lock.'

She did not pursue the subject and it faded quickly from Lavendale's mind. They dined in a quiet corner at the Milan and they talked of many things, chiefly the war.

'Do you realize,' he asked her, towards the end of their meal, 'that you are still a complete mystery to me?'

She nodded affably.

'Yes?'

'You know what I mean, of course,' he went on. 'Three weeks ago we joined hands for a moment. We were--may I not use the word?--associates. We were not, perhaps, completely successful in our enterprise, but at least we prevented that marvellous secret from ever reaching an enemy's hands. Then you disappeared. I heard nothing from you until your voice startled me down the telephone to-night--you want to dine with me. Well, I am your slave and here I am, but tell me, where have you been all this time?'

'In France,' she answered.

'And what have you been doing?'

'Attending to my own business.'

'And what is that?' he asked coolly.

She raised her eyebrows but her air of offence was obviously assumed. She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke for a minute. He was absorbed in the study of her hands--her unusually firm yet delicate fingers, ringless save for one large, quaintly-cut emerald.

'In my life,' she said, 'I have no confidants.'

'That seems a pity,' he replied. 'We might be useful to one another.'

'I am not so sure,' she answered thoughtfully. 'For instance, although we speak together in English, my soul is French. I am for France and France only. England is our very dear ally. England is a splendid and an honourable nation, but it is France's future welfare in which I am concerned, and not England's. You, on the other hand, are Saxon. England and America, after all, are very close together.'

'Greatest mistake of your life,' he assured her. 'I have a great respect for England and a great liking for English people, and I believe that she was dragged into this war without wanting it, but, on the other hand, as I told you once before, I am for America and America only. England has asked for what she is getting for a good many years. If even she gets a good hiding it won't do her any harm.'

'But America is so far outside,' she observed.

'Don't you make any mistake,' he answered promptly. 'The world grows smaller, year by year. The America of fifty years ago has become impossible to-day. We have our political interests in every country, and, however slow and unwilling we may be to take up our responsibilities, we've got to come into line with the other great Powers and use the same methods.'

'You may be right,' she confessed. 'Very well, then, you are for America and I am for France. Now tell me, as between Germany and England how are your sympathies?'

'With England, without a doubt,' he pronounced. 'Mind, I am not a rabid anti-German. I am not in the least sure that a nation with the great genius for progress that Germany has shown is not to some extent justified by taking up the sword to hew a larger place in the world for her own people. But that does not affect my answer to your question. My sympathies are with England.'

She flicked the ash from her cigarette. She was looking a little languidly across the room towards a table set against the wall.

'If your sympathy were a little stronger,' she remarked quietly, 'I could show you how to render England an incalculable service.'

'Tell me how?'

'First of all,' she continued, 'look at those three men and tell me what you think of them?'

He turned a little in his place and glanced towards the table which she had indicated. One of the three men who were seated at it was obviously a foreigner. His hair was grey towards the temples, although his moustache was almost jet-black; his cheek-bones were high, his teeth a little prominent. He wore evening clothes of the most correct cut, his shirt and links were unexceptionable. His two companions were men of a different stamp. The one who seemed to dominate the party was a huge man, clean-shaven, with puffy face and small eyes. He wore a dark flannel suit of transatlantic cut. He was drinking a large whisky and soda and smoking a cigar, and had apparently eaten nothing. His companion was of smaller build, with flaxen moustache and hair, and dressed in light grey clothes and yellow boots. On the face of it, the trio were ill-assorted.

'Well, I should say,' Lavendale remarked, 'that the dark man in the corner chair was a foreigner--a Russian, for choice. The other two are, of course, American business men. The face of the big man seems familiar to me.'

'You've probably seen his picture in the illustrated papers,' she told him. 'That is Jacob P. Weald. He was once called, I believe, the powder king.'

Lavendale nodded. His manner had become more interested.

'Of course,' he murmured. 'And that's Jenkins, the secretary to the Weald Company. I wonder who the third man is?'

'His name is Ossendorf--the Baron Cyril Ossendorf. He is a _persona grata_ at the Russian Embassy and he owns great estates in Poland.'

'Stop!' Lavendale exclaimed. 'This is getting interesting. He is buying munitions, of course.'

'Marvellous!' she murmured.

'Don't chaff me--it's really interesting.'

'Yes,' she admitted, 'it is interesting even from its external point of view. You are right. The Baron is probably giving, or has given, an enormous order for ammunition. Yet there is something behind that little conference, if only we could probe it, more interesting than you would believe, my friend.'

She paused. He waited eagerly, but she was silent for an unusually long time.

'You were suggesting,' he ventured to remind her, 'a few minutes ago, that there was some way in which intervention----'

She leaned a little towards him. Her hand rested for a second upon his.

'I have come to the conclusion,' she said, speaking very softly, 'that one of us, either you or I, must kill Ossendorf.'

He began to laugh and then stopped suddenly. A little shiver ran through him. For a single second her face was almost the face of a tigress. He felt that his laugh was a mistake.

'You are in earnest!' he muttered.

She rose from the table, gathered up her belongings and allowed him to arrange her cloak about her shoulders.

'Except that I retract that possible alternative,' she said calmly. 'I shall deal with Ossendorf myself.'

'But I don't understand,' he persisted.

'How should you?' she answered, smiling.

'By the by, where are we going? We spoke of a music hall, didn't we?'

'I have a box at the Empire,' he told her.

She was stepping by him into the taxi when she suddenly paused. Her frame seemed to become rigid.

'The Empire,' he told the driver.

She turned suddenly around.

'Your rooms,' she directed. 'Tell him to drive at once to your rooms.'

He was startled, but he obeyed her without hesitation. A moment later he took his place by her side.

'That valet of yours!' she exclaimed.

'What about him?'

'I told you that I knew his face. I have just remembered.'

'Well?'

'A year ago he was an attaché at the Japanese Embassy. His name is Baron Komashi.'

Lavendale was mystified.

'Are you sure?' he asked incredulously.

'Perfectly certain,' she insisted.

'But why on earth should he be a friend of Perkins and willing to act as my valet?'

'It's the eternal game,' she declared, 'and they are clever at it, too, the Japs. Tell me, have you any papers of special value about just now?'

'Yes, in my safe,' he admitted, 'but no one else has an idea of the combination.'

'Combination!' she scoffed. 'Niko Komashi, too! Tell me, are these papers political which you have inside that safe?'

'In a measure, yes!' he assented.

They had reached the street in which his rooms were situated.

'There is no light in my room,' he said, as they ascended the stairs. 'Niko must have done his work and gone home.'

'Yes,' she murmured, 'he has done his work, without a doubt. He has a knack of doing that.'

Lavendale produced his latch-key. The rooms appeared to be empty and in darkness. In the sitting-room he unlocked his safe and peered in. One by one he examined his papers. Everything was in perfect order. He turned back to his companion.

'Nothing has been disturbed,' he announced confidently.

She came over towards him, put her head for a moment inside the safe and immediately withdrew it.

'Niko has been through these papers during your absence,' she declared. 'If everything is there, it is because he had no need to steal. He has examined or made copies of what he chose.'

'How do you know this?' he asked incredulously.

'It is quite simple,' she explained. 'Even the cleverest man in the world seems always to forget one thing. Niko forgot that his clothes and fingers, even his breath, have always that peculiar Oriental perfume. What is it like--half almond-blossom, half sandalwood?'

'I remember I noticed it when he came in,' Lavendale agreed quickly.

'Put your head inside that safe again,' she directed.

He obeyed at once. When he emerged, his face was troubled. He locked the door mechanically.

'You are right,' he said.

They were silent for a moment. Lavendale was contemplating the lock in a dazed manner. He turned to Suzanne. She had seated herself in his easy-chair and had thrown back her cloak.

'You were going to tell me,' he reminded her, 'about this fellow Niko. You had an idea about him.'

'Mine is no idea,' she replied. 'It is a certainty. The man who posed this evening as your temporary valet, the man who in your absence has opened your safe, why, it is Baron Niko Komashi. He belongs to one of the most aristocratic families of Japan.'

'But he is a member of the Servants' Club!' Lavendale expostulated. 'He was a friend of Perkins--my servant!'

'Ostensibly,' she said dryly. 'He came over here as first secretary to the Embassy. Then he disappeared. No one quite knew what had become of him. I once had a suspicion. Now I know. You and I, my friend, are bunglers at the game he plays.'

Once more Lavendale was looking at the lock--unscratched, bearing so signs of having been tampered with.

'The thing is a miracle,' he muttered.

'Tell me--unless you would rather not,' she asked, leaning a little forward, 'was there any document in that safe likely to be of particular interest to the Japanese Secret Service?'

Lavendale's face was dark with mingled shame and humiliation.

'There was just the one document that should have been kept from them at all costs,' he declared bitterly. 'Two years ago I wrote a series of articles for an American Sunday paper upon our military unpreparedness. I don't know that they did any particular good, but, anyway, it's a subject I have studied closely. That paper I had my fingers on just now contains every possible scrap of information as to our standing army, our volunteer forces, our artillery, our possible scheme of defence on the west and the east, our stock of munitions, and our expenditure of same per thousand men. There was also an air and naval report and a scheme for mining San Francisco Harbour.'

She leaned back in her chair and laughed.

'Most interesting! I can quite understand how Niko's eyes would gleam! ... What's that?'

She turned her head suddenly. Lavendale, too, had started, and with a swift movement forward had touched the switch and plunged the room into darkness. They heard the soft click of the latch and the opening and closing of the front door. They heard the soft footsteps of the intruder across the hall. The door of the room in which they were was quietly opened and closed. Still with that same amazing stealthiness, a small, dark figure crossed the room and stood before the safe. Then there was a pause, several breathless moments of silence. Niko's instinct was telling him that he was not alone. Once more Lavendale's finger touched the switch and the lights blazed out. Niko was standing, the knob of the safe in his hand, his head turned towards them.

The sudden light had a common effect upon all of them. Suzanne for a moment held her hand in front of her eyes. Niko blinked slightly. Then he drew himself up to his full height of five feet four. He stood in front of the safe with his eyes fixed upon Lavendale, something about his face and attitude bearing a curious resemblance to a statue carved in wax. Lavendale coughed.

'You remind me, Baron Komashi,' he said, 'of an old English proverb--the pitcher that goes once too often to the well, you know. Was it something you had forgotten that brought you back? No, stay where you are, please.'

Niko remained motionless. Lavendale moved to a long, open cupboard which stood against the wall, opened it and groped about amongst its contents for a moment. Then he swung the door to and slipped some cartridges into the little revolver which he had taken from the top shelf. Niko's muscles suddenly seemed to relax. Ever so slightly he shrugged his shoulders. It was the gesture of a supreme philosophy.

'There's no need for a row,' Lavendale went on. 'The game you and I are playing at, Baron Komashi, requires finesse rather than muscle. By a stroke of genius you have read a certain document in that safe. That document is naturally of interest to the representative of the one country with whom America might possibly quarrel.'

Niko bowed his sleek head.

'I have read the document,' he confessed. 'It was my business here to read it. And now?'

'There you have me,' Lavendale admitted. 'It is a document, without a doubt, of great interest to you, and your Government will highly appreciate a résumé of its contents. At the same time, the only way to stop your making use of your information is to kill you.'

The man's face was like the face of a sphinx. Suzanne leaned a little further back in her chair and crossed her legs.

'It is a fortunate century in which you pursue your career, Baron,' she observed, 'and perhaps a fortunate country. These little qualms about human life which I can clearly see are influencing Mr. Lavendale, scarcely exist, even now, amongst your people, do they?'

'We are as yet,' Niko replied suavely, 'free, I am thankful to say, from the cowardice of the west.'

'If I asked you for your word of honour,' Lavendale continued, 'that you would not use that information?

'I might give it you,' Niko acknowledged, 'but my country's service is a higher thing than my personal honour, therefore it would do you no good. I shall be frank with you. There is no way you can prevent my report being duly made except by killing me. I am here, a self-confessed robber. If I were in your place, I should shoot.'

'The cowardice of the west, you see,' Lavendale remarked, throwing his revolver upon the table. 'You had better get out of the room. I might change my mind.'

For a moment Niko made no movement. Suzanne rose to her feet and lit a cigarette.

'As a matter of curiosity,' she asked, 'tell us why you returned, Baron?'

He bowed.

'The Empire performance is not over until half-past eleven,' he explained, 'and it is barely ten o'clock. I had some faint misgivings as to the resetting of the lock. I came back to examine it. That is my answer. You speak now of curiosity. I, too, have curiosity. Will you tell me how you knew that I had opened the safe?'

She smiled and lifted her handkerchief for a moment to her lips. Niko's head was bent as though in humiliation.

'It is so hard to outgrow one's errors,' he sighed.

He looked towards Lavendale and Lavendale pointed impatiently towards the door. He took a step or two in that direction, then he paused.

'Sir,' he said, looking back, 'because your methods are not mine, believe me that I still can appreciate their mistaken chivalry. The information I have gained I shall use. No promise of mine to the contrary would avail you. But there is, perhaps, some return which I might offer, more valuable, perhaps, to mademoiselle, yet of some import to you also.'

Suzanne leaned a little forward. Her cigarette burnt idly between her fingers.

'In this great conflict,' Niko continued, 'whose reverberations shake the earth, Japan watches from afar off. There are few who know the reason, but there is a reason. Let that pass. My country lays no seal upon my lips. What I know I pass on to you. A hundred million cartridges and five thousand tons of heavier ammunition, which might otherwise have reached Russia, are lying now at the bottom of the ocean. This is the doing of one man, a man in the pay of Germany, a man who is the greatest traitor the world has ever known.'

'Ossendorf!' Suzanne cried.

Niko bowed and moved towards the door.

'Mademoiselle has suspected, perhaps,' he concluded. 'It is I who can assure her that her suspicions are just. The greatest plant in America is kept producing munitions by day and night, bought with Russian gold but never meant to reach their destination. It is well?'

He looked at Lavendale, his hand upon the door. Lavendale nodded curtly.

'It is well,' he said.

* * * * *

Mr. Jacob P. Weald smoothed out the document which he had been examining and drew a deep sigh of satisfaction.

'Say, Ed,' he remarked, turning to his secretary, who was smoking a cigar at the other end of the room, 'that's worth a cool million apiece for us, that contract.'

'Hope there's no hitch,' the other replied anxiously. 'What's this young fellow from the Embassy want?'

'Nothing to hurt us,' Weald assured him. 'We're all right with the authorities all round. I'm glad, Ed, we did the square thing. We've had it straight from the British War Office to go right along ahead and give Russia everything we can turn out. Well, Russia's going to have it, and, by gum, there's enough ammunition provided for in that contract to make mincemeat of the whole German Army!'

There was a knock at the door of the sitting-room and a servant announced Mr. Ambrose Lavendale. Lavendale, following closely behind, shook hands at once with the two men.

'I've heard of your plant, Mr. Weald,' he said pleasantly. 'Wonderful things you've been doing in the way of producing ammunition, they tell me. Been unlucky some with your shipments, though, haven't you?'

'That's so,' the other admitted, 'but that's not our fault. We don't come in there. Our friends have their own steamships, eleven of them, bought for the job.'

'Lost two out of three already, haven't they?' Lavendale remarked.

'Say, you seem some wise, young man,' Mr. Weald said pleasantly. 'However, I got the note from the boss. What can we do for you?'

'A very small thing,' Lavendale replied. 'I understand that Baron Ossendorf is coming here to sign that contract at twelve o'clock.'

'You're dead right, sir,' Mr. Weald admitted, 'and there's a magnum of the best standing there in the ice, waiting for the psychological moment.'

'Mind my being present and asking him one question--just one?' Lavendale inquired.

'We ain't likely to object to anything you want to do, young fellow,' Mr. Weald assured him. 'Ed Jenkins there--he's secretary of the company--and I, have got no crooked ideas about this business. We are going to bring a few million dollars into our own pockets, but we are going to do it on the straight. What our Ambassador over here says, goes, and his note asks us to take you into this.'

There was a knock at the door. Ossendorf was announced and promptly entered. He held out a hand each to Weald and Jenkins. Then he glanced inquiringly at Lavendale.

'This is a young friend of ours from the American Embassy,' Mr. Weald explained. 'Mr. Ambrose Lavendale--Baron Ossendorf. He's a kind of witness that all's right and above-board.'

Baron Ossendorf bowed and held out his long, elegantly-shaped hand.

'I am delighted, Mr. Lavendale,' he said, 'delighted that you should be a participator in our little business this morning. Between Russia and America there have always been the most cordial sentiments of friendship. It is a pleasure to us to think that we are able, at these terrible times, to be of service to one another.... You have the contract, Mr. Weald? Ah!' he added, glancing at it through his eyeglass, 'I see that this is the draft which I have already perused. Nothing remains, then, but for me to sign it.'

He dipped his pen in the ink, stooped down and there was a moment's silence whilst his pen spluttered across the paper. Mr. Weald began to cut the strings of the magnum of champagne.

'Just one moment,' Lavendale interposed. 'There is a little condition, Baron, which it is not proposed to put officially into the agreement, a very small matter, but may I suggest it to you?'

Ossendorf turned his head. His eyes had narrowed a little.

'By all means, sir.'

'The contract,' Lavendale continued slowly, 'is for the whole production of the Weald Plant for six months, with option of continuance until the end of the war. Shipments are to be made weekly by steamers whose names are given there, steamers practically acquired by the Russian Government.'

'You are well informed, my young friend,' Ossendorf admitted quietly.

'It has been suggested,' Lavendale said, speaking slowly and looking Ossendorf in the face, 'that you should change the wireless operator on all those vessels for a person approved by the British Government.'

There was a moment's deep silence. Mr. Weald had paused with his knife already pressed against the last string of the bottle. Jenkins was standing with his mouth open, a little dazed. Ossendorf shrank back as though he had received a blow. It was obvious that he retained his composure with an effort.

'What do you mean?' he demanded.

'Simply this,' Lavendale replied firmly. 'Already the _Iris_ and the _Southern Star_, with enough ammunition on board to have supplied an army, have gone to the bottom. I mean, sir, that every one of those remaining nine boats on which is to be packed the whole production of the greatest ammunition plant in America, is doomed to go to the bottom.'

Two great drops of sweat had broken out on Ossendorf's forehead. His face seemed suddenly to have grown thinner. His mouth was open. He glared at Lavendale, but he was utterly incapable of speech. The latter turned to Weald.

'Mr. Weald,' he said, 'this contract for your entire output can be signed within twenty-four hours, either by a representative of Russia other than Baron Ossendorf, or by the secretary of the British Munition Board. This man Ossendorf is a paid traitor--the Judas of the war.'

Mr. Weald was incapable of coherent speech.

'You mean,' Jenkins faltered, 'that he is in the pay of Germany?'

'Ask him!' Lavendale suggested scornfully.

Ossendorf seemed to wither up. He staggered to his feet and groped to the door. Suddenly something flashed in his hands, clasped tightly between them. There was a loud report, the room seemed filled with smoke. They all three looked in a dazed manner at the figure stretched upon the carpet, face downwards, the shoulders still twitching slightly. Lavendale stood with his finger upon the bell.

'Sorry to have interfered, Mr. Weald,' he said, 'but your stuff's wanted somewhere else--not at the bottom of the sea.' ...

Ossendorf's body was carried away. It was very well understood that the matter was to be hushed up. Lavendale lingered with Mr. Weald, who was walking restlessly about the room, still scarcely able to realize what had happened.

'Poor devil!' he kept on muttering. 'Poor devil!'

Lavendale laid his hand firmly upon his compatriot's shoulder.

'Look here, Mr. Weald,' he said, 'there are good and bad of every nation--Germans, Americans, English, or French. This man was outside the pale. He was a black and dastardly traitor, the pariah of humanity, he trafficked with the lives of human beings, he was a murderer for gold. If anything, his end was too merciful.'

Mr. Weald nodded reflectively. Lavendale's words were convincing. His eyes wandered towards the champagne bottle upon the sideboard. He was feeling the strain.

'In that case,' he murmured, 'perhaps----'

Chapter IV

General Matravers Repays

Mademoiselle Suzanne de Freyne was travelling back to England in hot haste. On the French train she received courtesies rarely extended in these days to any solitary passenger, and at Boulogne she was hurried from the gangway of the steamer back on to the dock and into an evil-looking, four-funnelled British destroyer. Almost as she set foot on board, they moved away from the landing-stage. An officer came forward to meet her and saluted.

'The Captain's cabin is at your disposal, Miss de Freyne,' he announced. 'We have an invalided General on board, but we've tucked him up in a bunk. Afraid we shall give you a bit of a shaking up.'

'I am a very good sailor,' Suzanne assured him. 'It is delightful that I am able to come across with you. Time counts for so much, these days.'

'We haven't any stewardess,' the young officer remarked, as he threw open the door of the cabin. 'You'll ring the bell for anything you want, though. Parsons is an awfully good fellow. And you'll excuse me, won't you? I'm on duty.'

He hurried up on deck, and in a few moments the destroyer was clear of the harbour and tearing across the Channel into the sombre blackness of the night. Huge waves, with a thunderous roar, swept her decks. The spray leapt high above the tops of her squat funnels, from which flashed little jets of flame. Suzanne, driven from the cabin by the craving for air, stood half-way up the companion-way, looking into the blackness. Here and there, a star seemed to reel across the face of the sky and more than once a cloud of spray swept over her head. Unhesitatingly, as though driven by some superhuman hand, they ploughed their way through the black wall of space to their destination. After the turmoil of the Channel, their slow gliding up to the side of the dock seemed almost ghostlike. Suzanne felt almost as though she herself were breathless as she stood at last upon the soaking deck. There were a couple of dim lights and a few shadowy figures upon the quay. The young officer who had spoken to her at Boulogne, stood by her side.

'We are throwing a gangway across for you, Miss de Freyne. I'm afraid we gave you rather a rough crossing.

'I do not mind it,' she declared. 'I was only anxious to come quickly. Do you know if I shall be able to get on to London at once?'

'There will be a special for the General,' he told her. 'They'll probably take you, too.'

The gangway was thrown across. The young man saluted, and Suzanne stepped on to the rain-sodden dock. An official stepped up to her at once.

'Miss de Freyne?' he inquired.

'Yes?'

'There is a special waiting here for General Matravers. I have had instructions to attach a coach for you.'

'That is very delightful!' she exclaimed. 'Shall I follow you?'

The man piloted her across the track and handed her into an ordinary first-class compartment attached to the waiting train.

'Sorry we've had to give the saloon to General Matravers,' he explained. 'Will you have any tea or coffee, or anything to eat?'

She gave an order to the refreshment boy whom he summoned, and threw herself down with a sigh of content into the corner seat. Presently a tall man in khaki, with his arm in a sling and leaning upon a stick, came up the platform, followed by two junior officers. He was shown at once into the saloon and a little murmur of animated conversation arose. Five minutes later the train glided away, leaving the two junior officers disconsolate upon the long, wooden platform; passed through the two stations, and, gathering speed at every moment, rushed away northwards.

Suzanne had more than once boasted that she had no nerves. She finished her coffee and sandwiches, lit a cigarette and curled herself up in her corner. For a few moments she looked out into the darkness, watching the scanty lights. Then her eyes turned, entirely by chance, towards the door which connected her carriage with the saloon. They had no sooner rested upon it than a queer, inexplicable sense of uneasiness crept over her. She tried to look away from it, to look out of the opposite window, to interest herself in the evening paper. She read a line or two, then found herself slowly lowering the sheet, found herself peering over the top towards that closed door of dark red mahogany with its brass handle. She threw the paper down, walked to the end of the carriage and back again. She must be going mad, she told herself. The only occupant of that saloon was a wounded soldier of great distinction, a General whose deeds in the earlier stages of the war had made history. He was alone there without even an A.D.C., and in any case the door was probably locked. What cause of uneasiness for her could there be in his proximity? She fought against her fit of nerves valiantly, but she found herself tearing the paper into small pieces, crumbling the remains of her roll between her fingers, sipping desperately the remnants of her cold coffee. And all the time her eyes seemed glued upon that brass door-knob. If it should move! She set her teeth to keep from screaming. When the thing really happened, it seemed to bring, to a certain extent, release from her hysterical fears. Yet for the first few seconds it paralyzed her. The handle turned, slowly and deliberately. The door was pushed open towards her. A man looked in, stooping by reason of his height, a lean, gaunt man clad in the uniform of a General. He looked at her for a moment without speech. Then he came into the compartment and closed the door behind him.

'What do you want?' she asked hoarsely.

He saluted mechanically.

'I am General Matravers,' he announced. 'May I sit down?'

She glanced at the communication cord--it was on the distant side of the carriage. Why she should have been afraid of him she could not tell, yet she felt as though she had never been in such danger in her life as when he took the seat opposite to her.

'I am General Matravers,' he repeated. 'You have heard of me, perhaps?'

'But naturally,' she assented. 'We have all read of your wonderful exploits at Mons.'

He moistened his lips with his tongue. His face seemed curiously dried up, his eyes were hard, his features grim and bony. He presented somehow a queer impression of lifelessness.

'Mons!' he muttered ruminatingly. 'You've never been to Hell, have you, young lady?'

'Not yet,' she answered, watching him closely.

'That was the beginning of it,' he went on. 'We need a Dante, young lady, to sing to us of those days, when the winds were driven from the face of the earth by the screeching of the shells and the roar and the clash of the guns, and they seemed to be always nearer.... Every foot of ground was red with blood, the blood of our dear soldiers, and one thought of the people at home.... I know men who lost their reason at Mons.'

'It must have been terrible,' she faltered.

He sat opposite to her, nervously opening and closing the interlocked fingers of his hands.

'You know why I am coming home?' he asked abruptly. 'Medals enough here, you see, for a field-marshal, and I am sent home in disgrace.'

She murmured something to which he paid no attention whatever.

'I left my two A.D.C.'s at Folkestone,' he went on, 'forbade them to enter the train. They are worried about me. Perhaps they are right. You see, it was at--but we don't mention names--my headquarters last week. It was the night before our advance. You read about that. I won't mention the name of the place. We called it a partial success. But for the thing I am going to tell you, it might have been the turning point of the war. The attack failed--my fault.'

'I read that your division did splendidly,' she remarked.

Again he moistened his dry lips. His hands were shaking now by his side; he seemed like a man on the verge of paralysis.

'This is what happened,' he continued. 'I was at headquarters, my own headquarters. My orderly reported a Staff Officer from the French headquarters. He came in, a typical-looking young French soldier, wearing the uniform of one of their best regiments, one of those which I knew were in the division which was to join up with ours in the morning. He was tall and dark, with a thin, black moustache, long, narrow eyes, a scar on his right cheek, sallow, and with a queer habit of swinging his left arm. He brought me some intelligible, perfectly coherent verbal instructions, asked a few questions as to my plans for the next day, gave me a personal message from the French General commanding the division, saluted, got back into his motor-car and drove off. And I thought no more about it until we found out that our whole scheme of attack was known to the enemy, and that they were prepared for us at every point. He was a German. We were sold. Thousands of my men were lost through that. My fault. He was a German. Are you a German, young lady?'

'Ah, but no!' she exclaimed, shrinking a little back.

'You are not wholly English.'

'I am half French and half English,' she told him.

'The French are good people,' he went on, relapsing into his former far-away tone, 'very fine people. They can fight too, and they can tell Germans when they see them. That is why I am going home--because I couldn't. I've sworn that the next German I see, I'll kill. You're not a German, are you?'

'I told you just now,' she reminded him quietly, 'that I am half French and half English--mostly French. I am in the service of the French Government at the present moment, trying to help you, General.'

'Good girl,' he said absently. 'I thought there might have been a German in here when I heard some one moving. If I can't find one, I suppose I must shoot myself.'

He took out a little revolver and examined it. He opened the breech and she saw that it was fully loaded.

'May I look?' she asked.

He handed it to her at once. The window by which they sat was half down. She calmly threw it out. He looked at her in a mildly-vexed manner.

'You should not have done that, young lady,' he expostulated. 'I was very fond of that revolver. Besides, how am I to kill myself now?'

'I should wait,' she advised him. 'When you get to London you will easily find Germans--too many of them.'

He shook his head.

'But I've nothing to kill them with, and I've left my army behind. I am sent home,' he added, with a sudden hoarse pathos.

Her sense of personal fear had passed. She knew that the dangerous moment, if indeed there had been one, lay behind.

'There is so much work to be done in England,' she said.

He seemed to be looking through the carriage windows; his hands were twitching horribly.

'Those nights,' he muttered, 'when we thought that an hour's rest had come, and the red fires came spitting from our flanks just when we thought ourselves safe, when we thought them far and away behind----'

His words became unintelligible. He sat quite quiet. Presently, to her joy, she saw a carpet of lights on either side and knew that they were running into London.

'You had better get back to your saloon,' she said. 'We shall be at Charing Cross in a few minutes, and there will probably be some one to meet you.'

He rose obediently to his feet. The tears were in her eyes as he turned away with a stiff little salute, and, stooping low, disappeared through the doorway. Then she leaned back with a long-drawn sigh of relief. It was a strange little episode, another of the little adventures which gave colour to her life. She leaned out of the window and saw the last of him as they drew up. He was met by an officer and an elderly lady. She saw him pass out and take his place in a waiting motor-car. Then she stepped out herself, handed her bag to a porter and was conducted to a taxicab.

* * * * *

Suzanne sat, the next afternoon, under the trees at Ranelagh with Lavendale. She leaned back in her chair and breathed a little sigh of contentment.

'And you, my friend,' she asked, 'what have you been doing?

'Nothing,' he answered. I am waiting for a man to arrive from America. His coming, I fancy, will provide me with work, but until then there is nothing for me. To pass the time while you were in France, I went over to Holland last week.'

She nodded.

'The one country left which may provide us with a sensation,' she remarked. 'I suppose that is why you went.'

'I made a few inquiries,' he replied. 'My own impression of the people was that they wanted peace very badly and Schnapps more than anything else in the world.'

She laughed softly. It was significant of his attitude towards her that he asked no questions of her own doings.

'I had a curious adventure on my way back from Paris yesterday,' she told him. 'I travelled up from Boulogne in a special with General Matravers.'

'Matravers?' he repeated. 'Isn't he one of the British Generals who have been sent home?'

'I believe so,' she assented, 'in fact I am sure of it. He told me the whole story on the way up. Afterwards he brought out a revolver and swore that he was going to shoot himself.'

'What on earth did you do?' he exclaimed.

'I took it away from him,' she replied. 'He wasn't in the least dangerous, really.'

'Look here,' Lavendale declared earnestly, 'I think it's quite time you left off this travelling about alone.'

She laughed gaily.

'But, my friend,' she protested, 'what would you have? Can a trusted agent'--she glanced around for a moment and lowered her voice--'of the French and English Secret Service engage a chaperon?'

'I don't care,' he answered, a little doggedly. 'It's all very well for us men to take a risk or two, but it's no sort of life for a girl----'

She checked him at once.

'You don't understand,' she interrupted. 'I am a daughter of France. Every drop of blood in my body, every part of myself, my soul, even, belongs to my country. The work I am doing I shall go on with, whatever it might cost me.'

He did not attempt to argue with her, the finality of her tone was too absolute.

'I suppose it is because of this spirit,' he said, 'that France is invincible. Tell me----'

He broke off in his sentence. Her fingers had suddenly gripped his arm, she had leaned forward in her place. Coming down the steps on to the terrace was a little group of soldiers in staff uniform. One of them, in the centre of the group, was obviously a foreigner, and, from the respect with which they all treated him, a person of distinction.

'Who are they?' she asked.

'I expect they are members of the military mission from France,' he explained. 'They are being entertained down here to dinner to-night by some officials from the War Office. The head-waiter told me about it. I tackled him about a table in case you cared to stay down.'

'But only one of them is a foreigner,' she observed.

He shrugged his shoulders.

'I really don't know anything more about it,' he said. 'I don't suppose any one does. Why are you so interested?'

She said nothing for a moment. The Frenchman was standing chatting amiably in the centre of the terrace, and Suzanne watched him with curious intensity. He was tall, he had a slight black moustache, his eyes were long and narrow, there was a scar on his right cheek. He was the very prototype of the man who had arisen in her mind a few hours ago, called into being by those hoarse, broken-hearted words of the ruined General.

'I must know his name,' she insisted.

He looked at her wonderingly.

'But, my dear----'

'I must know his name,' she repeated. 'Please help me. Don't ask me why.'

He rose at once.

'I'll do my best,' he promised her.

He disappeared into the house. The little party of men strolled backwards and forwards along the terrace. In about five minutes Lavendale reappeared. He smiled as he approached.

'I got hold of the dinner cards,' he announced in triumph. 'His name is Lieutenant-Colonel Leychelles.'

The little company of soldiers at that moment began to descend the steps. Suzanne rose to her feet and, standing under the shadow of the trees, she leaned forward. The man whom she had been watching with so much interest, was distinctly swinging his left arm. She gripped Lavendale by the elbow.

'Come with me,' she insisted. 'Come with me at once. Take me up to town.'

He obeyed promptly. They passed through the house and Lavendale ordered up his car.

'Where to?' he asked, as he took his place at the driving wheel.

'I must find General Matravers,' she declared. 'Drive up towards London. I must think as we go.'

They glided down the drive, over Hammersmith Bridge and up to the Park.

'Don't you belong to a club somewhere?' she asked. 'We must get a Who's Who.'

'Why, of course,' he answered. 'We can manage that easily enough.'

He pulled up presently outside the door of the Bath Club in Dover Street.

'If you'll wait here for half a moment,' he suggested.

She nodded and he sprang down and ran lightly up the steps. He was back again almost at once.

'The first name I came across,' he announced,--'17 Belgrave Square is the town address. Shall I drive there? It's quite close.'

She assented. In a few moments they arrived at their destination. Suzanne stood under the stone portico and rang the bell. In due course a butler appeared.

'General Matravers is not seeing anybody, madam,' was his prompt reply to Suzanne's inquiry. 'The doctor has ordered him complete rest.'

'My business,' Suzanne explained, 'is very urgent.'

'So every reporter who has been here to-day has told me,' the man replied a little wearily. 'No one has been allowed to see him.'

'Is Lady Matravers in?' Suzanne persisted.

'Lady Matravers is not receiving. Perhaps you would like to leave your name and a message, madam?' the man suggested.

A tall, dark-haired woman, who had been crossing the hall, paused. She came a few steps towards Suzanne.

'I am Lady Matravers,' she announced, 'Can I do anything for you?'

Suzanne pressed forward and the butler stood on one side.

'Lady Matravers,' the former said earnestly, I have the most important business with your husband. I know he is ill--I came up from Folkestone with him yesterday--and yet I must see him.'

'You were his companion in the special train?' Lady Matravers asked. 'He spoke of a young lady who travelled up with him.'

'I am the young lady,' Suzanne assented. 'I am in the Secret Service of France,' she went on, dropping her voice a little. 'Your husband told me some curious things last night. It is in connection with one of them that I wish to see him. It isn't for my own sake, Lady Matravers. It is for the sake of the country.'

The door was thrown open. General Matravers, leaning upon his stick, came into the hall. He was looking very white and shaken, but he seemed to recognize Suzanne. He looked at her doubtfully.

'It is the young lady whom I found last night in the carriage attached to my saloon,' he remarked, 'the young lady, my dear,' he added, turning to his wife, 'who threw my revolver out of the window.'

Lady Matravers glanced towards the servant who was lingering in the background and led Suzanne back into the room from which she herself had issued. The General followed her. A quiet-faced woman in nurse's uniform rose from a chair as they entered.

'If you are really the young lady who travelled with my husband from Folkestone last night,' Lady Matravers said kindly, 'I am very glad indeed to meet you. He has told me such very nice things about you. The doctor's orders are that he is not to be disturbed on any account, but if you wish to speak to him for a few minutes, here he is. I was just trying to persuade him to go to bed when you came.'

'Perhaps what I have come to say may do your husband more good than harm,' Suzanne assured her. 'General,' she added, turning towards him, 'do you mind describing to me once more the man who came to your headquarters masquerading as a French officer, an envoy from the French Brigadier-General?'

The General's face darkened.

'Describe him!' he exclaimed. 'Why, I can't get him out of my thoughts for a minute! He was tall, soldierly, dark, sallow, black moustache, narrow eyes, black hair cut short, a scar on his right cheek, and he had a habit swinging his left arm when he walked.'

'I need not ask you whether you would know him again,' Suzanne said, 'because I am sure you would. I may be very foolish and I may be making a very silly mistake, but there is a man over here now attached to the French Military Mission. He is being entertained to-night at Ranelagh by officials from the War Office. He leaves to-morrow, ostensibly for French headquarters, and he answers your description exactly.'

All the nervousness had left the General's manner. He was perfectly calm, a little eager. He picked up his cap and cane from a table.

'Where is he to be found?' he asked.

'If you will come with me,' Suzanne promised, 'I will take you to him.'

The nurse hastened towards them. The General pushed her aside. His tone had acquired a new firmness.

'Please understand, both of you,' he said, 'that no nurse or doctor's injunctions will keep me from doing my duty. My dear,' he added, turning to his wife and kissing her upon the forehead, 'this is not a matter in which you must interfere. If the young lady is mistaken, I shall come back at once. If by any chance she is right, it is imperative that I should go. I am at your service, madam.'

'I will take care of him,' Suzanne whispered to Lady Matravers.

They let him go, doubtfully but of compulsion. He took his place in the car and acknowledged his introduction to Lavendale with a stiff salute. They started off at once. For the first time Suzanne began to be a little nervous about the outcome of their journey.

'This man,' she explained, 'is being entertained at dinner at Ranelagh at the present moment. We can go down there and you can see from the open doorway of the dining-room whether there is any truth in my suspicions. If we are wrong----'

'You need have no fear, young lady,' the General assured her calmly. 'I am a member of Ranelagh and well-known there. It will be quite in order that I stroll round the place and glance in at the dining-room. If your suspicions are, as you suggest, ill-founded, no harm will be done. If they are true,' he added, his voice shaking for a moment, 'if really it is vouchsafed to me in this life to find myself face to face once more with that man----'

He broke off abruptly and muttered something under his breath. Not another word was spoken until they had turned in at the avenue and pulled up in front of the clubhouse. The General had become preternaturally calm. He waited, however, for Suzanne to precede him.

'If you will lead the way, young lady,' he suggested.

They crossed through the two rooms, out on to the terrace the other side, and turned towards the dining-room. The gardens were bright with flowers, and the glow of the sunset seemed still to linger about the place. One or two visitors who had dined early were already having their coffee under the trees. From a hidden spot the musicians were tuning their instruments. Suzanne felt her heart beat rapidly as they drew near the dining-room; the General, apparently unmoved, walked with measured tread, a commanding and dignified figure. A couple of young soldiers stood up as he passed, and he accepted their salute genially. Then he passed into the dining-room. Almost immediately in front of him, at the table usually reserved for the golfers' luncheon, the dinner-party was proceeding, and on the right-hand side of the host sat the distinguished Frenchman. He was facing the door and he glanced up at the entrance of the little party. Suzanne asked no questions. She felt her breath almost stop, a little sob choked her. The faces of almost every one in the room, the laughter, the murmur of conversation, seemed suddenly in her mind to have become arrested. More than anything else in the world she was conscious of this one thing--the man who sat there knew that his hour had come, knew that Fate was marching towards him in the shape of that grim, military figure.

The General walked towards the party very much with the air of one who had come to make some casual inquiry. It was only when he was recognized that a little interested murmur stole around the room. He walked to within a few feet of the Frenchman and his right hand seemed to have disappeared for a moment.

'Gentlemen,' he said, without unduly raising his voice but with curious distinctness, 'the man whom you are entertaining here as an emissary from our French allies, is an impostor, a German and a spy. He cost me, a few weeks ago, the lives of two thousand of my men. A far smaller thing, he is responsible for the ruin of my reputation. This is less than he deserves.'

With hand as steady as a rock, the General held his revolver out before him and deliberately fired three times at the man whom he had accused, and who had fallen forward now, his outstretched hands sweeping the wineglasses from in front of him--stone dead. The General watched his victim without emotion. He even leaned forward to make sure that the wounds were mortal. Then he walked deliberately out into the garden, heedless of the shrieking of the women, the crowd of diners who had sprung to their feet, the passing of the paralysis which had seemed to keep every one in the room seated and silent.

* * * * *

They found the proofs upon his body that night--horrifying, stupefying proofs--and the censor's hand came down. No word of that tragedy ever appeared under any sensational headline in any newspaper. In the face of that grim silence, even many of those who had been present found themselves wondering whether that lightning tragedy had not been a nightmare of the brain. To Suzanne de Freyne, however, it remained always one of the tense moments of her life. The General, with the revolver still in his hand, turned towards her with a polite gesture and a happy smile as he led the way into the garden. He tossed the weapon into a bed of geraniums and seemed utterly indifferent to the turmoil around.

'You were right, young lady,' he said. 'That was the man.'

Chapter V

Susceptible Mr. Kessner

There was a vigour in her walk, a determination in her face, which made Lavendale pause for an instant before he crossed the street to accost Suzanne de Freyne. It was perfectly clear to him that she was bound upon a serious errand. She was dressed with her usual subdued elegance but with more, even, than her usual simplicity. In her black tailor-made costume, her small hat and neat patent shoes, she looked like the Rue de la Paix at four o'clock in the afternoon during its halcyon days. He was forced to quicken his pace to intercept her.

'Good morning, Miss de Freyne!'

She turned quickly around and held out her left hand. Her greeting was cordial enough, but her air of abstraction did not altogether disappear.

'Where have you been hiding for the last few days?' she asked.

'I came back from Holland last night,' he replied. 'I have been in Germany again.'

'Any news?' she asked quickly.

'Nothing very wonderful. I needn't ask how things are with you. I can tell that you have something on hand. Can I help?'

She laughed.

'You are right in a way, but I don't think you can help,' she told him. 'This is quite an important morning--it is Celia's sale.'

He was a little staggered. Her manner was convincing.

'You mean that you are going to a millinery sale?'

'Don't be silly,' she answered. 'The first morning of Celia's sale is the most important event of the season. We have printed cards of invitation, and policemen outside the door to keep away intruders. This isn't any ordinary bargain hunting, you know. This is our one chance to provide ourselves with the elegancies of life at a reasonable cost.'

'For the moment, I gather,' he went on, falling into step with her, 'the affairs of the nation are in the background.'

'Naturally,' she assented.

'At what hour,' he inquired, 'will this function be over?'

She glanced at him suspiciously.

'If I thought you were making fun----'

'Never entered into my head,' he assured her.

'Then you can give me some lunch at one o'clock,' she promised.

'That's exactly what I was hoping for. And, Miss de Freyne?'

'Well?'

'Would you mind very much if I brought an acquaintance?'

She glanced at him in some surprise.

'Of course not,' she answered, 'only it must be a grill-room luncheon, please. I am dressed for a scrimmage.'

'At one o'clock at the Milan Grill,' he told her, raising his hat.

He strolled slowly away southwards, crossed Pall Mall, and let himself in by a side entrance to the American Embassy. Here he spent a few minutes in the outer offices and passed on, a little later, into a more private apartment. An elderly man with a clean-shaven face, grey hair brushed back from his forehead, and tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, looked up from his roll-topped desk and waved his visitor to a seat.

'Hullo, Ambrose! Anything fresh?'

Lavendale drew up a chair and grasped the hand which the other offered him.

'There is plenty going on, if one could get to understand it, Mr. Washburn,' he said. 'Berlin had me puzzled.'

'When did you get back?'

'Last night.'

'See anything of our friend?'

'He crossed with me.'

'Get acquainted with him?'

'Oh! I knew him before in Washington and in New York,' Lavendale replied. 'I took care to remind him of it, too. Yes, he was quite friendly. All the same, he was secretive. He didn't tell me the one thing I discovered of the greatest interest in connection with his trip, and that was that the Kaiser sent his private car three hundred miles and met him at the Western Headquarters. They spent the best part of the day together. Has he been in here?'

Mr. Washburn shook his head.

'He neither reported before he left, nor has he been in since he got back. Kind of giving us the cold shoulder, isn't it?'

'He hasn't had much time yet,' Lavendale remarked thoughtfully, 'but it certainly doesn't look exactly like the behaviour of a loyal American.'

Mr. Washburn turned in his place, removed his spectacles from his eyes and rubbed them carefully with his handkerchief. A slight weariness was apparent in his face and tone.

'That's our great trouble, Ambrose,' he said. 'Germany's a mighty country. She holds her sons in a closer grip than any other nation in the world. A German-American is a German first and an American afterwards, and don't you forget it. That's what makes us such a polyglot, indiscriminate race. Are you going to make a report?'

'Not at present,' Lavendale replied. 'I haven't yet pieced together the scraps I was able to pick up. Let it be for a day or two. What I am anxious to find out is whether Kessner reports here or not, and what account he gives, if any, of his journey to Germany.'

'I'll send you word directly he shows up, if he comes at all,' Mr. Washburn promised. 'I hear there are half-a-dozen more of his gang in London.'

Lavendale nodded.

'They've some sort of a show on. Kessner as good as admitted it to me.'

'Where do you stand with him?' Mr. Washburn asked curiously.

'I'm all right up to the present,' Lavendale asserted. 'He believes I went over on a mission about the British prisoners, 'and he's inclined to fancy I may be useful to him. Anyway, he is lunching with me to-day.'

Mr. Washburn smiled.

'If you think you'll get much out of him, young fellow,' he said, 'I fancy you're looking for disappointment. The brains that made twenty million in Wall Street and control an organization so secret that we can't even put a finger upon it----'

'Yes, I know,' Lavendale interrupted, rising, 'but, you know, there's always chance to be reckoned with, and I've one card up my sleeve, anyway. I know all about him and he doesn't suspect me yet.' ...

'Exactly why am I asked to this festive lunch?' Suzanne de Freyne inquired, as she leaned back upon a settee in the small lounge which led into the Milan grill-room, at a few minutes before one o'clock that morning.

'Because I am up against a cul-de-sac,' Lavendale confessed, 'and I want your woman's wit to show me the way out.'

'You seem to be taking it for granted that we are allies,' she remarked.

'We are to a certain extent,' he pleaded. 'You must admit that a Germanized United States would be bad for you, and that is what we have to fight against.'

A waiter set down two cocktails upon a small table in front of them. She sipped hers deliberately.

'Tell me, what is the trouble with this man Kessner?' she asked. 'Of what is it that you really suspect him?'

'I wish I knew,' Lavendale groaned. 'These are the bald facts. Washington and New York, during the last six months, have been the scene of the most desperate efforts of German diplomacy and political manoeuvring, with one sole aim--that of preventing the export of munitions of war to England or France. Money has been spent like water but the progress has been too slow. Germany has gained adherents to her point of view, but not enough. America is in a position to be of immense use to the Allies and none whatever to Germany or Austria, and up to the present she shows no signs of ceasing to supply England and France and Russia with all the munitions she can turn out. The German Party in America have taken stock of these things. They have measured their weakness and tasted defeat. Everything up to this point has been above-board. We understood perfectly well what they were fighting for, and to a certain extent admitted their grievance.'

'They had no grievance,' Miss de Freyne interposed.

'Perhaps not a logical one,' Lavendale admitted, 'but you see it is perfectly true that while they are supplying munitions on an immense scale to the Allies, they are supplying none at all to Germany and Austria. That is, of course, owing to England's control of the sea, but it is galling to Germany and Austria to know that a neutral country is providing her enemies with the means of waging warfare against her. From their point of view it is not ideal neutrality, is it?'

'America is perfectly ready to supply Germany and Austria as well,' she reminded him. 'Besides, Germany and Austria both supplied England during the Boer War.'

'That, of course, is what makes America's position logical,' he went on, 'but listen. Kessner and his friends have obviously come to an end of their intriguing in the direction of stopping supplies. They have dropped their newspaper campaign. They have shrugged their shoulders and apparently accepted the inevitable. No one who knows them would believe them capable of anything of the sort. Kessner has been over here for a month. He was in Germany when I was. He spent a week with the Chancellor and a long time with the Kaiser himself. Heyl and both the Hindemanns are over here, too. They have also been in Germany. You see, they are all entitled to call themselves Americans, although they are Germans at heart.'

'You think that there is some fresh scheme on?' she asked.

'I am perfectly certain there is,' he said firmly. 'Not only that, but I have an idea as to its bearing.... This is our friend. If you don't know him by sight, prepare for a shock.'

A small man, dressed in plain black clothes, with broad-toed shoes and a tie almost clerical in its simplicity, had entered the place and was handing his bowler hat to an attendant. His complexion was sallow, his general air one of complete insignificance. Suzanne watched the greeting between the two with intense interest. It was hard to realize that this was Ludwig Kessner, twenty times a millionaire.

The little man's speech and manners wholly belied his appearance. His assurance was unlimited. He talked easily and with confidence.

'Well, young fellow,' he exclaimed, 'so we are back in London, eh? Not late, am I?'

'Not a moment,' Lavendale assured him. 'I want to present you, if I may, to Miss de Freyne, who is lunching with us. Miss de Freyne,' he added, 'this is Mr. Kessner.'

She rose with a charming little smile and shook hands with him. Mr. Kessner seemed to see no reason why he should conceal his admiration. He walked close to her side as they entered the luncheon-room.

'Our young friend and I,' he remarked, 'were hanging over the side of a steamer, looking out for submarines, this time yesterday. Not particularly good for the appetite, that sort of thing.'

'I think it is very brave of you to have really crossed the North Sea,' Suzanne declared. 'I should have been terrified to death.'

'Business is business,' Mr. Kessner observed, 'and I am something of a fatalist myself. I go about what I have to do and take my chances. Same with Mr. Lavendale, I expect, only these diplomatists are used to it. Troublous times, Miss de Freyne, times such as I never dreamed we should see in our days. By the by, are you French or English?'

'French, English, and Austrian,' she told him, smiling, as they took their places at the table, 'so you see I represent neutrality in my own person. My grandmother was Austrian, and I have never been so happy as when I lived in Vienna.'

He nodded approvingly.

'Do you know,' he said, 'I am glad you are not altogether English. I don't know which way your sympathies may be in this trouble, and I don't know as it matters. We each of us have a right to our feelings, whatever they may be. I am an American first and foremost, like our friend here, only he has British blood in his veins behind it, and I have German. We can keep good friends for all that, though.'

'I think,' she sighed, 'that I am in a most trying position. I adore Austria and I have many relations there. I am very fond of France and I have some good friends in England. I am torn every way. After all, though,' she went on reflectively, 'it cannot be as hard for me as for you. You really are German, are you not, and yet you have to sit still and see America doing an enormous lot to help the Allies.'

He glanced at her keenly. Her sincerity was undoubted. Before he replied he looked also at the occupants of the next two tables, young people from the land of musical comedy with their khaki-clad escorts, intellectually negligible. Nevertheless, he lowered his voice a little as he answered.

'You are quite right, Miss de Freyne. It is one of the hardest nuts we have to crack, we German-Americans. We are honest and above-board about it, you see. We have worked like slaves to direct the policy of America our own way, and we've failed.'

'Is there nothing more you can do?' she asked earnestly.

There was a moment's silence. Mr. Kessner, with his napkin tucked in underneath his chin, was settling down to his luncheon like a man. Nevertheless, he again glanced searchingly at his neighbour.

'It is hard to see what can be done,' he said calmly. 'I have been in Germany to visit some of my relatives. It is very wonderful to hear them all talk there. There is no pessimism, no doubt whatever, no shadow of misgiving. Germany must win--that is in their hearts. They have not a single doubt. And here in London, whether the people deceive themselves or not, they say the same thing. They go about their business with even more assurance, and they indulge in pleasures far more freely.'

'Which is going to win?' she asked.

'Neither,' he replied. 'Neither has the preponderance of strength to smash the other. It will be a drawn fight. There will be a period of peace, nominal peace. Germany knows now what she has to face--a world in arms against her. When the next time comes, she will be ready.'

'There will be a next time, then?'

'Germany is not yet at the end of her resources,' he assured her. 'There are other ways in which she can make herself felt. But let us leave for a little time these serious subjects. This champagne, I know, my friend Lavendale, is a compliment to me. You English-Americans do not drink champagne in the middle of the day. Believe me, you are wrong. I drink your very good health, Miss de Freyne, and yours, Lavendale. And I drink also,' he added, his eyes lightening a little as he looked across the room, 'the unspoken toast!'

He set his glass down empty.

'There is an unspoken toast close to the heart of all of us, Miss de Freyne,' he remarked, 'one little secret we keep at the back of our thoughts. Now tell me. I sail on Saturday. On Friday night you and our friend Lavendale will give me the honour of your company at dinner, eh? It is arranged. At the Ritz at eight o'clock.'

'You are very kind,' they both murmured

He selected a cigar from a box which had been passed him, and rose a little abruptly.

'I go to speak with a friend,' he said--'a matter of business. For your excellent luncheon I thank you very much, and for the privilege of having met Miss de Freyne,' he added with a little bow, 'I thank you even more. Till Friday, then.'

He shuffled across the room, an ill-dressed, undignified figure, yet with a confidence which surpassed conceit. They saw him greet a compatriot and seat himself at the latter's table.

'That man,' Lavendale said, as he toyed with his coffee spoon, 'has at the back of his head some new scheme. It may not be directed against your people. I have an idea that it is more likely to be directed against mine.'

'But he is an American himself,' she protested.

'He is a German-American,' Lavendale replied, 'which means that he is very much a German and very little an American.'

'Whatever his new scheme may be,' she sighed, 'I do not think that he is disposed to talk about it.'

'Whatever it may be,' Lavendale replied, 'it is my business to find it out. One thing is absolutely certain. No American would receive the attentions of the Kaiser--in war time, too--and come back here without a word to say about it, unless there was something in the background, something he meant to keep secret.'

They strolled out into the entrance hall and Lavendale departed in search of his hat. A waiter came hurriedly out to Suzanne's side.

'For madame,' he whispered, slipping a little note into her hand.

Her fingers closed upon it quickly. She glanced around. Lavendale was still talking to some acquaintances. She opened it and read the few hastily pencilled lines:--

'_It would give me a great deal of pleasure to see you again before Friday. I am in flat 74 in the Court here. Shall be alone all this afternoon._'

She crumpled up the note in her hand. Lavendale was coming towards her.

'Can I take you anywhere?' he asked. 'The car will be outside.'

She shook her head.

'Don't bother about me,' she said. 'I am going up to my room to write some letters.'

* * * * *

'Come in!'

Suzanne turned the handle of number seventy-four, closed the door behind her and entered the sitting-room. Mr. Kessner turned around in his chair from before a mass of papers. He looked at Suzanne for an instant in surprise, an expression which, as he recognized her, changed quickly into one of satisfaction. He rose to his feet and came towards her.

'This is a great pleasure, my dear young lady,' he said. 'I scarcely dared to hope----'

He took her hands, but she evaded him with a little smile.

'You see, we are neighbours almost,' she explained. 'I have an apartment here when I am in London. I thought I would call in and see you on the way to my room. But, please--do you mind?'

She pushed him gently away from her. For a moment his face darkened. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he threw himself into the easy-chair opposite, a shapeless, ill-dressed little morsel of humanity, with a queer intelligence shining out of his narrowed eyes, suggested, too, in the square forehead and puckered brows.

'Listen, young lady,' he said. 'Do you know why I asked you to come and see me?'

She raised her eyebrows and laughed at him.

'Because you like me, I hope,' she replied. 'For myself, I love making fresh acquaintances amongst clever men.'

'Acquaintances?' he repeated slowly.

She nodded several times.

'I am not one of those,' she said, 'who can gather the whole world in without a pause. I like to make acquaintances. Sometimes an acquaintance may become a friend. Sometimes--but that takes time.'

She felt the steely light of his eyes upon her and looked modestly down upon the carpet.

'Well,' he went on, 'there were two reasons why I sent for you. One I think you have surmised, and you keep it there at the back of your pretty little head. The other--well, you are a young person of intelligence and mixed nationality. I thought it possible that you might be of use to me.'

'But in what manner?' she demanded.

'I was frank with you at luncheon-time,' he said. 'You know where my sympathies lie. Yours, I gathered, are divided. Would it be possible, I wonder, to induce you to look my way?'

'But you yourself admitted,' she reminded him, 'that the cause of Germany in America is lost. What more is there to be done?'

'Young lady,' he replied, 'the cause of Germany in America may be lost for the moment so far as regards our efforts to induce the present administration to carry into effect an ethical neutrality. But the great source of Germany's greatness is her capacity for looking ahead. If one cause is lost, then in that day a new one is born. If Germany had not foreseen and prepared for this war for forty years, she would have been crushed to-day. Now we who are her sons in foreign countries, our eyes, too, are fixed upon the future.'

'Then you have a new scheme,' she said quietly.

'We have a new scheme,' he admitted, 'but what that may be it is not my intention to tell you at present.'

She pouted at once.

'Of course, if you are not going to trust me----'

'You must not be a foolish child,' he interrupted. 'You would think little of me if I did, and besides,' he added, rising to his feet, 'I am not sure yet that I do trust you. Wait.'

He touched the bell. Almost immediately the door of the sitting-room was opened. She gave a little start. An immense coloured man in dark clothes stood respectfully in the doorway.

'George,' his master directed, 'if any one rings, I am engaged. See that I am not disturbed on any pretext.'

'Very good, Mr. Kessner!

The man closed the door with wonderful softness. Even his footsteps, as he retreated into the bedroom, were inaudible. Kessner's elbow was propped against the mantelpiece, his head supported in his thin, yellow-stained fingers. He looked down at her.

'If you do not trust me,' she persisted, 'how can I be of help to you?'

'I might put you to the test,' he said slowly.

There was nothing distinctly threatening in his tone, and yet all at once she was afraid. The thought of that black Hercules loitering outside, something in the downward droop of the eyes of this man all the time edging a little nearer to her, seemed suddenly to become terrifying. Nevertheless, she refused to flinch.

'I do not like riddles,' she declared. 'Perhaps you had better think over more definitely what you want to say to me, before Friday night, or send a note up to my room.'

'There is no necessity,' he replied. 'What I have to say to you is already quite clear in my mind.'

He moved still nearer, stood over the couch by her side. Then the outside bell rang. He paused to listen. Her heart gave a little jump as a familiar voice asked for Mr. Kessner.

'It is Mr. Lavendale!' she exclaimed under her breath. 'Don't let him find me here!'

His features relaxed. He laughed and patted her hand. She could have said nothing to inspire him with more confidence.

'Of course not,' he replied indulgently. 'Don't be afraid. George would tell him that I was engaged. He had my orders to let no one in.'

'But I heard him say that he would wait!' she persisted anxiously. 'Cannot I hide somewhere for a moment while you see him and send him away?'

George made a discreet appearance.

'A gentleman inquiring for you, sir,' he said. 'He is waiting outside in the corridor. I told him that you would be a long time.'

Mr. Kessner considered for a moment.

'Would you mind stepping into my sleeping apartment?' he asked Suzanne.

She sprang up at once.

'You will get rid of him quickly?' she begged.

He pressed her hand affectionately. She endured his touch without flinching. He handed her over to George and pointed to the door of his room.

'Give the young lady a chair inside,' he ordered. 'I will see Mr. Lavendale.'

She was ushered into a bedroom and a moment or two later she heard Lavendale announced. Then George returned, handed her some American papers and disappeared into the bathroom beyond. She rose to her feet as he closed the door. The sound of Lavendale's voice was muffled and inaudible. She glanced around the room. It was tastefully but very plainly furnished. There was nothing about on the mantelpiece or bureau likely to be of the slightest interest. Suddenly her heart gave a little jump. George came out of the bathroom with a coat upon his arm, threw open the bureau and searched there for something. As he stood there, a thin, black silk pocket-book slipped from the breast-pocket of the coat and fell unnoticed on to the carpet. A moment later he closed the bureau, laid the coat carefully out upon the bed and withdrew into the bathroom, closing the door. Suzanne held her breath for a single moment. Then she stole across the floor, seized the pocket-book, opened the bedroom door stealthily, and with