Yet he had done it, she reflected, gazing thoughtfully at Fischer’s gift. If, indeed, he knew what was passing around him to that extent, how much more knowledge might he not possess? She felt the little silken belt around her waist. At least there was no one who could take Sandy Graham’s secret from her until she chose to give it up. Supposing for a moment that Lutchester was also out for the great things, was he fooled by her attitude? If he knew so much, he must know that the secret remained with her. Perhaps, after all, he was only a philanderer in intrigue….
Pamela bathed and dressed, sent for her brother, and, to his horror, insisted upon an American breakfast.
“It’s quite time I came back to look after you, Jimmy,” she said severely, as she watched him send away his grapefruit and gaze helplessly at his bacon and eggs. “You’re going to turn over a new leaf, young man.”
“I shan’t be sorry,” he confessed fervently. “I tell you, Pamela, when you have a thing like this hanging over you, it’s hell—some hell! You just want to drown your thoughts and keep going all the time.”
She nodded sagely.
“Well, that’s over now, Jimmy,” she said, “and I meant you to listen to me. It’s more than likely that Mr. Fischer may find out at any moment that the mysterious pocketbook, which came from heaven knows where, is a faked one. He may be horrid about it.”
“While we are on that,” Van Teyl interrupted, “I couldn’t sleep a wink last night for trying to imagine where on earth that fellow Lutchester came in, and what his game was.”
“I have a headache this morning, trying to puzzle out the same thing,” Pamela told him.
“He seems such an ordinary sort of chap,” Van Teyl continued thoughtfully. “Good sportsman, no doubt, and all that sort of thing, but the last fellow in the world to concoct a yarn, and if he did, what was his object?”
“Jimmy,” his sister begged, “let’s quit. Of course, I know a little more than you do, but the little more that I do know only makes it more confusing. Now, to make it worse, he’s gone away.”
“What, this morning?”
“Gone away on his Government work,” Pamela announced. “I had a note and some roses from him. Don’t let’s talk about it, Jimmy. I keep on getting new ideas, and it makes my brain whirl. I want to talk about you.”
“I’m a rotten lot to talk about,” he sighed.
She patted his hand.
“You’re nothing of the sort, dear, and you’ve got to remember now that you’re out of the trouble. But listen. Hurry down to the office as early as you can and set about straightening things out, so that if Mr. Fischer tries to make trouble, he won’t be able to do it. There’s my cheque for eighty-nine thousand dollars I made out last night before I went to bed,” she added, passing it over to him. “Just replace what stocks you’re short of and get yourself out of the mess, and don’t waste any time about it.”
His face glowed as he looked across the table.
“You’re the most wonderful sister, Pamela.”
“Nonsense!” she interrupted. “Nonsense! I ought not to have left you alone all this time, and, besides, I’m pretty sure he helped you into this trouble for his own ends. Anyway, we are all right now. I shall be in New York for a few days before I go to Washington. When I do go, you must see whether you can get leave and come with me.”
“That’s bully,” he declared. “I’ll get leave, right enough. There’s never been less doing in Wall Street. But say, Pamela, I don’t seem to half understand what’s going on. You’ve given up most of your friends, and you spend months away there in Europe in all sorts of corners. Now you come back and you seem mixed up in regular secret service work. Where do you come in, anyway? What are you going to Washington for?”
She smiled.
“Queer tastes, haven’t I, Jimmy?”
“Queer for a girl.”
“That’s prejudice,” she objected, shaking her head. “Nowadays there are few things a woman can’t do. To tell you the truth, my new interest in life started three years ago, when Uncle Theodore found out that I was going to Rome for the winter.”
“So Uncle Theodore started it, did he?”
She nodded.
“That’s the worst of having an uncle in the Administration, isn’t it? Well, of course, he gave me letters to every one in Rome, and I found out what he wanted quite easily, and without the inquiries going through the Embassy at all. Sometimes, as you can understand, that’s a great advantage. I found it simply fascinating—the work, I mean—and after three or four more commissions—well, they recognised me at Washington. I have been to most of the capitals in Europe at different times, with small affairs to arrange at each, or information to get. Sometimes it’s been just about commercial things. Since the war, though, of course, it’s been more exciting than ever. If I were an Englishwoman instead of an American, I could tell them some things in London which they’d find pretty surprising. It’s not my affair, though, and I keep what information I do pick up until it works in with something else for our own good. I knew quite well in Berlin, for instance, to speak of something you’ve heard of, that Henry’s Restaurant in London was being used as a centre of espionage by the Germans. That is why I was on the lookout, the day I went there.”
“You mean the day that pocketbook was stolen that the whole world seems crazy about?” Van Teyl asked.
She nodded.
“I believe it is perfectly true,” she said, “that a young man called Graham has invented an entirely new explosive, the formula for which he brought to Henry’s with him that day. It isn’t only what happens when the shell explodes, but a sort of putrefaction sets in all round, and they say that everything within a mile dies. There were spies down even watching his experiments. There were spies following him up to London, there were spies in Henry’s Restaurant when like a fool he gave the thing away. Fischer was the ringleader of this lot, and he meant having the formula from Graham that night. I don’t want to bore you, Jimmy, but I got there first.”
“Bore me!” the young man repeated. “Why, it’s like a modern Arabian Nights. I can’t imagine you in the thick of this sort of thing, Pamela.”
“It’s very easy to slip into the way of anything you like,” she answered. “I knew exactly what they were going to do to Captain Graham, and I got there before them. When they searched him, the formula had gone. Fischer caught my steamer and worried me all the way over. He thought he had us in a corner last night, and then a miracle happened.”
“You mean that fellow Lutchester turning up?”
“Yes, I mean that,” Pamela admitted.
“Say, didn’t that Jap fellow get the pocketbook from your rooms at all, then?” Van Teyl asked. “I couldn’t follow it all last night.”
“He searched my rooms,” Pamela replied, “and failed to find it. Afterwards, when he and I were alone in your sitting-room, heaven knows what would have happened, but for the miraculous arrival of Mr. Lutchester, whom I had left behind in London, come to pay an evening call in the Hotel Plaza, New York!”
Van Teyl shook his head slowly, got up from his seat, lit a cigarette, and came back again.
“Pam,” he confessed, “my brain won’t stand it. You’re not going to tell me that Lutchester’s in the game? Why, a simpler sort of fellow I never spoke to.”
“I can’t make up my own mind about Mr. Lutchester,” Pamela sighed. “He helped me in London on the night I sailed—in fact, he was very useful indeed— but why he invented that story about Nikasti, brought a dummy pocketbook into the room and helped us out of all our troubles, unless it was by sheer and brilliant instinct, I cannot imagine.”
“Let me get on to this,” Van Teyl said. “Even the pocketbook was a fake, then?”
She nodded.
“I shouldn’t be likely to leave things I risk my life for about my bedroom,” she told him.
“Where is it, then—the real thing?” he asked.
She smiled.
“If you must kn
ow, Jimmy,” she confided, dropping her voice, “it’s in a little compartment of a silk belt around my waist. It will remain there until I get to Washington, or until Mr. Haskall comes to me.”
“Haskall, the Government explosives man?”
Pamela nodded.
“Even he won’t get it without Government authority.”
“Now, tell me, Pamela,” Van Teyl went on—“you’re a far-seeing girl—I suppose we should get it in the neck from Germany some day or other, if the Germans won? Why don’t you hand the formula over to the British, and give them a chance to get ahead?”
“That’s a sensible question, Jimmy, and I’ll try to answer it,” Pamela promised. “Because when once the shells are made and used, the secret will be gone. I think it very likely that it would enable England to win the war; but, you see, I am an American, not English, and I’m all American. I have been in touch with things pretty closely for some time now, and I see trouble ahead for us before very long. I can’t exactly tell you where it’s coming from, but I feel it. I want America to have something up her sleeve, that’s why.”
“You’re a great girl, Pamela,” her brother declared. “I’m off downtown, feeling a different man. And, Pamela, I haven’t said much, but God bless you, and as long as I live I’m going as straight as a die. I’ve had my lesson.”
He bent over her a little clumsily and kissed her. Pamela walked to the door with him.
“Be a dear,” she called out, “and come back early. And, Jimmy!” …
“Hullo?’”
“Put things right at the office at once,” she whispered with emphasis. “Fischer hasn’t found out yet. I sent him a message this morning, thanking him for the carnations, and asking him to walk with me in the park after breakfast, I shall keep him away till lunch time, at least.”
The young man looked at her, and at Nikasti, who out in the corridor was holding his hat and cane. Then he chuckled.
“And they say that things don’t happen in New York!” he murmured, as he turned away.
CHAPTER XVI
Table of Contents
An elderly New Yorker, a man of fashion, renowned for his social perceptions, pressed his companion’s arm at the entrance to Central Park and pointed to Pamela.
“There goes a typical New York girl,” he said, “and the best-looking I’ve seen for many a long day. You can go all round Europe, Freddie, and not see a girl with a face and figure like that. She had that frank way, too, of looking you in the eyes.”
“I know,” the other assented. “Gibson’s girls all had it. Kind of look which seems to say—‘I know you find me nice and I don’t mind. I wonder whether you’re nice, too.’”
Pamela strolled along the park with Fischer by her side. She wore a tailor-made costume of black and white tweed, and a smart hat, in which yellow seemed the predominating colour. Her shoes, her gloves, the little tie about her throat, were all the last word in the simple elegance of suitability. Fischer walked by her side—a powerful, determined figure in a carefully-pressed blue serge suit and a brown Homburg hat. He wore a rose in his buttonhole, and he carried a cane—both unusual circumstances. After fifty years of strenuous living, Mr. Fischer seemed suddenly to have found a new thing in the world.
“This is a pleasant idea of yours, Miss Van Teyl,” he said.
“I haven’t disturbed your morning, I hope?” she asked.
“I guess, if you have, it isn’t the way you mean,” he replied. “You’ve disturbed a good deal of my time and thoughts lately.”
“Well, you’ve had your own way now,” she sighed, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. “I suppose you always get your own way in the end, don’t you, Mr. Fischer?”
“Generally,” he admitted. “I tell you, though, Miss Van Teyl,” he went on earnestly, “if you’re alluding to last night’s affair, I hated the whole business. It was my duty, and the opportunity was there, but with what I have I am satisfied. With reference to that little debt of your brother’s—”
“Please don’t say a word, Mr. Fischer,” she interrupted. “You will find that all put right as soon as you get down to Wall Street. Tell me, what have you done with your prize?”
Mr. Fischer looked very humble.
“Miss Van Teyl,” he said, “for certain reasons I am going to tell you the truth. Perhaps it will be the best in the long run. We may even before long be working together. So I start by being honest with you. The pocketbook is by now on its way to Germany.”
“To Germany?” she exclaimed. “And after all your promises!”
“Ah, but think, Miss Van Teyl,” he pleaded. “I throw aside all subterfuge. In your heart you know well what I am and what I stand for. I deny it no longer. I am a German-American, working for Germany, simply because America does not need my help. If America were at war with any country in the world, my brains, my knowledge, my wealth would be hers. But now it is different. Germany is surrounded by many enemies, and she calls for her sons all over the world to remember the Fatherland. You can sympathise a little with my unfortunate country, Miss Van Teyl, and yet remain a good American. You are not angry with me?”
“I suppose I ought to be, but I am not in the least,” she assured him. “I never had any doubt as to the destination of that packet.”
“That,” he admitted, “is a relief to me. Let us wipe the matter from our memories, Miss Van Teyl.”
“One word,” she begged, “and that only of curiosity. Did you examine the contents of the pocketbook?”
He turned his head and looked at her. For a moment he had lost the greater spontaneity of his new self. He was again the cold, calculating machine.
“No,” he answered, “except to take out and destroy what seemed to be a few private memoranda. There was a bill for flowers, a note from a young lady—some rubbish of that sort. The remaining papers were all calculations and figures, chemical formulae.”
“Are you a chemist, Mr. Fischer?” she inquired.
“Not in the least,” he acknowledged. “I recognised just enough of the formulae on the last page to realise that there were entirely new elements being dealt with.”
She nodded.
“I only asked out of curiosity. I agree. Let us put it out of our thoughts. You see, I am generous. We have fought a battle, you and I, and I have lost. Yet we remain friends.”
“It is more than your friendship that I want, Miss Van Teyl,” he pleaded, his voice shaking a little. “I am years older than you, I know, and, by your standards, I fear unattractive. But you love power, and I have it. I will take you into my schemes. I will show you how those live who stand behind the clouds and wield the thunders.”
She looked at him with genuine surprise. It was necessary to readjust some of her impressions of him. Oscar Fischer was, after all, a human being.
“What you say is all very well so far as it goes,” she told him. “I admit that a life of scheming and adventure attracts me. I love power. I can think of nothing more wonderful than to feel the machinery of the world—the political world—roar or die away, according to the touch of one’s fingers. Oh, yes, we’re alike so far as that is concerned! But there is a very vital difference. You are only an American by accident. I am one by descent. For me there doesn’t exist any other country. For you Germany comes first.”
“But can’t you realise,” he went on eagerly, “that even this is for the best? America to-day is hypnotised by a maudlin, sentimental affection for England, a country from whom she never received anything but harm. We want to change that. We want to kill for ever the misunderstandings between the two greatest nations in the world. My creed of life could be yours, too, without a single lapse from your patriotism. Friendship, alliance, brotherhood, between Germany and America. That would be my text.”
“Shall I be perfectly frank?” Pamela asked.
“Nothing else is worth while,” was the instant answer.
“Well, then,” she continued, “I can quite see that Germany has everything
to gain from America’s friendship, but I cannot see the quid pro quo.”
“And yet it is so clear,” Fischer insisted. “Your own cloud may not be very large just now, but it is growing, and, before you know it, it will be upon you. Can you not realise why Japan is keeping out of this war? She is conserving her strength. Millions flow into her coffers week by week. In a few years time, Japan, for the first time in her history, will know what it is to possess solid wealth. What does she want it for, do you think? She has no dreams of European aggression, or her soldiers would be fighting there now. China is hers for the taking, a rich prize ready to fall into her mouth at any moment. But the end and aim of all Japanese policy, the secret Mecca of her desires, is to repay with the sword the insults your country has heaped upon her. It is for that, believe me, that her arsenals are working night and day, her soldiers are training, her fleet is in reserve. While you haggle about a few volunteers, Japan is strengthening and perfecting a mighty army for one purpose and one purpose only. Unless you wake up, you will be in the position that Great Britain was in two years ago. Even now, work though you may, you will never wholly make up for lost time. The one chance for you is friendship with Germany.”
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