CHAPTER X

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_ Van Teyl, as he hastened forward to meet his friend, presented at first sight a very good type of the well-groomed, athletic young American. He was over six feet tall, with smooth, dark hair brushed back from his forehead, a strong, clean-shaven face and good features. Only, as he drew nearer, there was evident a slight, unnatural quivering at the corner of his lips. The cordiality of his greeting, too, was a little overdone.

"Welcome home, Fischer! Why, man, you're looking fine. Had a pleasant voyage?"

"Storms for the first few days--after that all right," Fischer replied.

"Any submarines?"

"Not a sight of one. Seen your sister yet?"

"Not yet. I've been waiting about for a telephone message. She hadn't arrived, a few minutes ago."

Fischer frowned.

"I want us three to meet--you and she and I--the first moment she sets foot in the hotel," he declared.

"What's the hurry?" Van Teyl demanded. "You must have seen plenty of her the last ten days."

"That," Fischer insisted, "was a different matter. See here, Jimmy, I'll be frank with you."

He walked to the door of the bedroom, opened it, and looked inside. Its sole occupant was Nikasti, who was at the far end, putting away some clothes. Fischer closed the door firmly and returned.

"I want you to understand this, James," he began. "Your sister is meddling in certain things she'd best leave alone."

Van Teyl lit a cigarette.

"No use talking to me," he observed. "Pamela's her own mistress, and she's gone her own way ever since she came of age."

"She's got to quit," Fischer pronounced. "That's all there is about it. You and I will have to talk this out. Where are you dining?"

"Downstairs," Van Teyl replied gloomily. "I was thinking of waiting for Pamela."

"You leave word to have your people let you know directly she arrives," Fischer advised, "and come along with me."

Van Teyl allowed himself to be led towards the door. Nikasti, with a due sense of his new duties, glided past them, rang for the lift, and watched them descend. Fischer turned at once towards the dining room.

"Thank God we're in a civilised country," he observed, "and that I don't have to change when I don't want to!"

They found a quiet table, and Fischer, displaying much interest in the menu, ordered a somewhat extensive dinner.

"Grapefruit and Maryland chicken are worth coming back to," he declared. "Now see here, James, let's get to business. You've got to help me with your sister."

"But how?" Van Teyl demanded. "Pamela and I are good pals, of course, but she has a will of her own in all she does, and I don't fancy that anything I could say would influence her very much."

"There are two things about your sister," Fischer continued. "The first is that she's got to quit this secret service business she's got herself mixed up in."

"Don't talk nonsense!" Van Teyl exclaimed. "Pamela doesn't care a fig about politics."

Fischer grunted scornfully.

"You don't know much about your sister, young fellow," he said. "Internal politics over here may not interest her a cent, but she's crazy about America as a country, and she's shrewd enough to see things coming that a great many of you over here aren't looking for. Anyway, she came bang up against me in a little scheme I had on the night before I left Europe, and somewhere about her she's got concealed a document which I'd gladly buy for a quarter of a million dollars."

Van Teyl drank off his second cocktail.

"Some money!" he observed. "How did she come by the prize?"

"Played up for it, just as I did," Fischer replied. "She was clever enough to make use of my scaffolding, and got up the ladder first. I'm not squealing, but I've got to have that document, whatever it costs me."

Van Teyl was silent for a moment. There was an undercurrent of something threatening in his companion's manner, of which he had taken note.

"And the second thing you mentioned?" he asked. "What is that?"

Fischer, as though to give due emphasis to his statement, indulged in a brief pause. Then he leaned a little forward and spoke very slowly and very forcibly.

"I want to marry her," he declared.

Van Teyl learned back in his chair and gazed at his vis-a-vis in blank astonishment.

"You must be a damned fool, Fischer!" he exclaimed.

"You think so?" was the unruffled reply. "I wonder why?"

"I'll tell you why, if you want to know," Van Teyl continued bluntly. "I know of four of the richest and best-looking young men in America, two ambassadors, an English peer, and an Italian prince, who have proposed to Pamela during the last twelve months alone. She refused every one of them."

"Well," Fischer remarked, "she must marry some time."

Van Teyl looked at him insolently.

"I shouldn't think you'd have a dog's chance," he pronounced.

There was a little glitter behind Fischer's spectacles.

"Up till now," he admitted smoothly, "I have not been fortunate. I must confess, however, that I was hoping for your good offices."

"Pamela wouldn't take the slightest notice of anything I might say," Van Teyl declared. "Besides, I should hate you to marry her."

"A little blunt, are you not, my young friend?" Fischer remarked amiably. "Still, to continue, there is also the matter of that document. I must confess that I exercised all my ingenuity to obtain possession of it on the steamer."

"You would!" Van Teyl muttered.

"Your sister, however," Fischer continued, "was wise enough to have it locked up in the purser's safe the moment she set foot upon the steamer. She gave me the slip when she got it back, and eluded me, somehow, on the quay. She will scarcely have had time to part with it yet, though. When she arrives here to-night, it will in all probability be in her possession."

"Well?" Van Teyl demanded. "You don't suggest that I should rob her of it, I suppose?"

"Not at all," Fischer replied. "On the other hand, you might very well induce her to give it up voluntarily, or at least to treat with me."

"You don't know Pamela," was Van Teyl's curt reply.

"I know her sufficiently," Fischer went on, leaning over the table, "to believe that she would sacrifice a great deal to save her brother from Sing Sing."

Van Teyl took the thrust badly. He started as though he had been stabbed, and his face became almost ghastly in its pallor. He tossed off a glass of wine hastily.

"Just what do you mean by that?" he asked thickly.

"Are you prepared," Fischer continued, "to have me visit your office to-morrow morning and examine my accounts and securities in the presence of your partners?"

"Why not?" Van Teyl faltered. "What the hell do you mean?"

"I mean, James Van Teyl," his companion declared, "that I should find you a matter of a hundred thousand dollars short. I mean that you've realised on some of my securities, gambled on your own account with the proceeds, and lost. You did this as regards one stock at least, with a forged transfer, which I hold."

Van Teyl looked almost piteously around. Life seemed suddenly to have become an unreal thing--the crowds of well-dressed diners, the gentle splashing of the water from the fountains in the winter garden, the distant murmuring of music from behind the canopy of palms. So this was the end of it! All that week he had hoped against hope. He had been told of a sure thing. Next week he had meant to have a great gamble. Everything was to have gone his way, after all. And now it was too late. Fischer knew, and Fischer was a cruel man!...

The unnatural silence came to an end. Only Fischer's voice seemed to come from a long way off.

"Drink your wine, James Van Teyl," he advised, "and listen to me. You've been under obligations to me from the start. I meant you to be. I brought a great business to your firm, and I insisted upon having you interested. I had a motive, as I have for most things I do. You are well placed socially in New York, and I am not. You are also above suspicion, which I am not. It suited me to take this suite in the Plaza, nominally in our joint names, but to pay the whole account myself. It suited me because I required the shelter of your social position. You understand?"

"I always understand," Van Teyl muttered.

"Just so. Only, whereas you simply thought me a snob, I had in reality a different and very definite purpose. We come now, however, to your present obligation to me. I can, if I choose, tear up your forged transfer, submit to the loss of my money, and leave you secure. I shall do so if you are able to induce your sister to hand over to me those few lines of writing--to which, believe me, she has no earthly right--and to accept me as a prospective suitor."

Van Teyl was drinking steadily now, but every mouthful of food seemed almost to choke him. Red-eyed and defiant, he faced his torturer.

"You're talking rot!" he declared. "Pamela wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth, and if she's got anything she wants to keep, she'll keep it."

"And see her brother disgraced," Fischer reminded him, "tried at the Criminal Court for theft and sent to Sing Sing? It's a good name in New York, yours, you know. The Van Teyls have held up their heads high for more than one generation. Your sister will not fancy seeing it dragged down into the mire."

For a single moment the young man seemed about to throw himself upon his companion, Fischer, perfectly unmoved, watched him, nevertheless, like a cat.

"Better sit tight," he enjoined. "Drop it now or people will be watching us. I have ordered some of the old brandy. A liqueur or two will steady you, perhaps. Afterwards we will go upstairs and take your sister into our confidence."

Van Teyl nodded.

"Very well," he agreed hoarsely. "We'll hear what Pamela has to say." _

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