CHAPTER VI

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_ It was about half-an-hour later when Sandy Graham opened his eyes and began to feel the life once more warm in his veins. He was seated in the most comfortable easy-chair of John Lutchester's bachelor sitting-room. By his side was a coffee equipage and a decanter of brandy. His head still throbbed, and his bones ached, but his mind was beginning to grow clearer. Lutchester, who had been seated at the writing table, swung round in his chair at the sound of his guest's movement.

"Feeling better, eh?" he asked.

"I am all right now," was the somewhat shaky reply. "Got a head like a turnip and a tongue like a lime-kiln, but I'm beginning--to feel myself."

"How's your memory?"

"Hazy. Let me see.... My God, I've been robbed, haven't I!"

"So I imagine," Lutchester replied. "You rather asked for it, didn't you?"

Graham moved uneasily in his place. He had suddenly the feeling of being back at school--and in the presence of the headmaster.

"I suppose I did in a way," he admitted, "but at Henry's--why, I've always looked upon the place as a club more than anything else."

"I am afraid that I can't agree with you there," Lutchester observed. "I should consider Henry's a remarkably cosmopolitan restaurant, where a man in your position should exercise more than even ordinary restraint."

"I suppose I was wrong," Graham muttered, "but I had been working for about ten hours on end, and then rushed up to London in the car to try and keep my appointment with Holderness."

"Stop anywhere on the way?"

"We had a few drinks," Graham confessed. "I was so done up. Perhaps I had more than I meant to. However, it's no use bothering about that now. I've been robbed, and that's all there is about it. Could we get on to Scotland Yard from here?"

"We could, but I don't think we will," Lutchester replied.

Graham was puzzled.

"Why not?" he demanded. "That formula was the most wonderful thing that has ever been put together, and the whole thing's so simple. I've been afraid every second that some one else might stumble upon it."

"It is without doubt a great loss," Lutchester admitted. "All the same, I don't fancy that it's a Scotland Yard business exactly. Have you any idea who robbed you?"

Graham paused to think. His eyes were still troubled and uncertain.

"It's coming back to me," he muttered. "I remember that beastly barn of a chapel. There were Jules, and that musician fellow, and the big American. He emptied my pockets ... Why, of course, I remember how angry he was ... My pocketbook was gone! They left me alone to write out the formula again, and then you came.... How on earth did you tumble on to my being there, Lutchester?"

"It was Miss Pamela Van Teyl whom you must thank," Lutchester told him, "not me. It seems she knew more about Henry's than any of us. She'd come up against some of the crew in Berlin, and she guessed they were holding you for that formula. She got the key out of one of those men and then telephoned to me for my help."

"And I never even thanked her," Graham murmured weakly.

There was a moment's silence. The recovering man's consciousness of his position and of events was evidently as yet incomplete. He sat up suddenly in his chair, gripping the sides of it. His eyes were large with reminiscent trouble.

"My pocketbook had gone when they searched me," he muttered.

"Are you sure that you had it with you when you came into Henry's?" Lutchester inquired.

"Absolutely certain."

"Do you think you can remember now what happened when you went upstairs?"

"I reached the lavatory all right--you were with me then, weren't you?" Graham said reflectively. "I hung up my coat while I washed, but there was no one else in the room. Then you went downstairs and I brushed my hair and just stopped to light a cigarette. You know that on the right-hand side of the landing there is a room where the musicians change. Joseph, that black devil, was standing in the doorway. He grinned as I came into sight. 'Lady wants to speak to you for a moment, Captain Graham,' he said. Well, you know how harmless the fellow looks--just a good-natured, smiling nigger. I never dreamed of anything wrong. As a matter of fact, I thought that Peggy Vincent--that's a young lady I often go to Henry's with--wanted to have a word with me before I joined our party. I stepped inside the room, and that's just about all I can remember. It must have been jolly quick. His arm shot round my neck, the door was closed, and that other brute--Hassan, I think it was--held something over my face."

"But that room was searched," Lutchester reminded him.

"Well I came to just a little," Graham explained, "I found that I was in a sort of cupboard place, behind the lockers these fellows have for their clothes. It opens with a spring lock, and you'd never notice it, searching the room."

"Who was the first person you saw when you recovered consciousness?"

Graham's forehead was wrinkled in the effort to remember.

"I can't quite get hold of it," he confessed, "but I have a sort of fancy I can't altogether get rid of that there was a woman about."

Lutchester looked at the end of the cigarette he had just lit.

"A woman?" he repeated. "That's queer."

"I can't remember anything definitely until I woke up in that chapel," Graham continued, "but when they searched me and found that the pocketbook had gone, Fischer, the big American, muttered some woman's name. I was queer just at the moment, but it sounded very much to me like Miss Van Teyl's. He rang her up on the telephone."

"Did they suspect Miss Van Teyl, then, of having taken your pocketbook?"

Graham shook his head.

"I lost the drift of things just then," he admitted. "She couldn't have done, in any case. Forgive me, but aren't we wasting time, Mr. Lutchester? We must do something. Couldn't you ring up Scotland Yard now?"

"I certainly could," Lutchester assented, "but, as I told you just now, I don't think that I will."

Graham stared at him.

"But why not?"

"For certain very definite reasons with which you needn't trouble yourself just now," Lutchester pronounced. "The formula has gone, without a doubt, but it certainly isn't in the hands of any of the people at Henry's."

"But there's that American fellow--Fischer!" Graham exclaimed. "He was the ringleader!"

"Just so," Lutchester murmured thoughtfully. "However, he hasn't got the formula."

"But he planned the attack upon me," Graham protested. "He is an enemy--a German--sheltering himself under his American naturalization. Surely we're going for him?"

"He's a wrong 'un, of course," Lutchester admitted, "but he hasn't got the formula."

"But we must do something!" Graham continued, his anger rising as his strength returned. "Why, the place is a perfect den of conspirators! I expect Ferrani himself is in it, and there's that other maitre d'hotel, Jules, and those black beasts, Joseph and Hassan, besides Fischer. My God, they shall pay for this!"

Lutchester nodded.

"I dare say they will," he admitted, "but not quite in the way you are thinking of."

Graham half rose to his feet.

"Look here," he said, "I'm sane enough now, aren't I, and in my proper senses? You are not going to suggest that we don't turn the police on to that damned place?"

"I certainly am," was the brief reply.

Graham was aghast.

"What do you mean to do, then?"

"Leave them alone for the present. Not one of them has the formula. Not one of them even knows where it is."

"But the attack upon me?"

"You asked for all you got," Lutchester told him curtly, "and perhaps a little more."

The first tinge of colour came back to Graham's cheeks. His eyes flashed with anger.

"Perhaps I did," he admitted, "but that doesn't alter the fact that I'm going to have some of my own back out of them."

Lutchester crossed his legs and turned round in his chair. For the first time he directly faced his visitor. His tone, though not unkindly, was imperative.

"Young fellow," he said, "you'll have to listen to me about this."

A smouldering sense of revolt suddenly found words.

"Listen to you? What the devil have you got to do with it?" Graham demanded.

"I hate to remind any one of an obligation," Lutchester answered, "but I am under the impression that, together with Miss Van Teyl, of course, I rescued you from an exceedingly inconvenient situation."

"I haven't had time yet to tell you how grateful I am," Graham said awkwardly. "You were a brick, of course, and how you and Miss Van Teyl tumbled on to the whole thing I can't imagine. But I don't understand what you're getting at now. You can't suggest that I am to leave these fellows alone and not give information to the police?"

"The character of the place," Lutchester assured him, "is already perfectly well known to the heads of the police. The matter will be dealt with, but not in the way you suggest. And so far as regards Fischer, I do not wish him interfered with for the present."

"You do not wish him interfered with?" Graham repeated. "Where the devil do you come in at all?"

"You can leave me out of the matter for the present. You want the formula back, don't you?"

"My God, yes!" Graham muttered fervently. "It's all very well to give one a pencil and a piece of paper and say 'Write it out,' but there are calculations and proportions--"

"Precisely," Lutchester interrupted. "You want it back again. Why not let Fischer do the business? He has an idea where it's gone. The thing to do seems to me to follow him."

"To follow Fischer?" Graham repeated vaguely.

"Precisely. If he thinks the formula is in England, Fischer will stay in England. If he thinks that it has gone abroad he will go abroad. If we leave him free we can watch which he does."

Graham swallowed half a wineglassful of the brandy by his side. Then he leaned forward.

"Look here," he said, "you'll forgive me if I repeat myself and ask you once more--what the hell has all this got to do with you?"

"Just this much," Lutchester replied, "that I insist upon your taking the course of action in this matter which I propose."

"You mean," Graham protested, working himself gradually into a state of wrath, "that I am to go back to my rooms as though nothing had happened, see Holderness and the others to-morrow, and not have a word of explanation to offer? That I am to leave those blackguards at Henry's to try their dirty games on some one else, and let Fischer, the man who was fully inclined to become my murderer, go away unharmed? I think not, Mr. Lutchester. I am much obliged for your help, but you are talking piffle."

"What do you propose to do, then?"

"I am going round to Scotland Yard myself."

Lutchester rose to his feet.

"Stay where you are for a minute, please," he begged.

He passed into a smaller room, and Graham could hear faintly the sound of the telephone. In a minute or two his host returned.

"Go in there and speak, Graham," he invited. "You will find some one you know at the other end."

Graham did as he was bidden, and Lutchester closed the door after him. For a few minutes the latter sat in his chair, smoking quietly, his eyes fixed upon the fire. Then his unwilling guest reappeared. He came into the room a little unsteadily and looked with new eyes at the man who seemed so unaccountably to have taken over the control of his affairs.

"I don't understand all this," he muttered. "Who the devil are you, anyway, Lutchester?"

"A very ordinary person, I can assure you," was the quiet reply. "However, you are satisfied, I suppose, that my advice is good?"

"Yes, I am satisfied," Graham answered nervously. "You know that--that I'm under arrest?"

Lutchester nodded.

"Well, you're not asking for my sympathy, I suppose?" he observed drily.

The young man flushed.

"I know that I behaved like a fool," he admitted. "All the same, I've been working night and day for weeks on this problem. I haven't even been up to town once. I must say I think they seem inclined to be a little hard on me."

"No one is going to be in the least hard on you," Lutchester assured him. "You have committed a frightful indiscretion, and all that is asked of you now is to keep your mouth shut. If you do that, I think a way will be found for you out of your troubles."

"But what is to become of me?" Graham demanded.

"I understand that you are to be taken to Northumberland to-morrow," Lutchester informed him. "There you will be allowed every facility for fresh experiments. In the meantime, I have promised to give you a shakedown here for the night. You will find a soldier on guard outside your door, but you can treat him as your servant."

"You are very kind," Graham faltered, a little vaguely. "If only I could understand--"

Lutchester rose to his feet. His manner became more serious, his tone had in it a note of finality.

"Captain Graham," he interrupted, "don't try to understand. I will tell you as much as this, if it helps you. Henry's Restaurant will be placed under the closest surveillance, but we wish nothing disturbed there at the moment until we have discovered the future plans of Mr. Oscar Fischer."

"The big German-American," Graham muttered. "He's the man you ought to get hold of."

"Some day I hope that we may," Lutchester declared. "For the moment, however, we want him undisturbed. You would scarcely believe it, perhaps, if I told you that the theft of your formulas is only a slight thing compared to the bigger business that man has on hand. There is something else at the back of his head which is worth heaven and earth to us to understand. We want the formula and we shall have it, but more than anything else in the world we want to know why Fischer has pledged his word in Berlin to bring this war to an end within three months. We have to find that out, and we are going to find it out--from him. You see, I have treated you with confidence, Captain Graham. Now let me show you to your room." Graham put his hand to his forehead.

"I feel as though this were some sort of nightmare," he muttered. "I've known you for several months, Mr. Lutchester, and I have never heard you say a serious word. You dance at Henry's; you made a good soldier, they said, but you'd had enough of it in twelve months; you play auction bridge in the afternoons; and you talk about the war as though it were simply an irritating circumstance. And to-night--"

Lutchester threw open the door of his own bedroom and pointed to the bathroom beyond.

"My man has put out everything he thinks you may want," he said. "Try and get a good night's sleep. And, Graham."

"Yes?"

"Don't bother your head about me, and don't ask any more questions." _

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