CHAPTER XVIII

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_ There was a ripple of interest and a good deal of curiosity that afternoon, in the lounge and entrance hall of the Hotel Plaza, when a tall, grey-moustached gentleman of military bearing descended from the automobile which had brought him from the station, and handed in his name at the desk, inquiring for Mr. Fischer.

"Will you send my name up--the Baron von Schwerin," he directed.

The clerk, who had recognised the newcomer, took him under his personal care.

"Mr. Fischer is up in his rooms, expecting you, Baron," he announced. "If you'll come this way, I'll take you up."

The Baron followed his guide to the lift and along the corridor to the suite of rooms occupied by Mr. Fischer and his young friend, James Van Teyl. Mr. Fischer himself opened the door. The two men clasped hands cordially, and the clerk discreetly withdrew.

"Back with us once more, Fischer," Von Schwerin exclaimed fervently. "You are wonderful. Tell me," he added, looking around, "we are to be alone here?"

"Absolutely," Fischer replied. "The young man I share these apartments with--James Van Teyl--has taken his sister out to Baltusrol. They will not be back until seven o'clock. We are sure of solitude."

"Good!" Von Schwerin exclaimed. "And you have news--I can see it in your face."

Fischer rolled up easy chairs and produced a box of cigars.

"Yes," he assented, with a little glitter in his eyes, "I have news. Things have moved with me. I think that, with the help of an idiotic Englishman, we shall solve the riddle of what our professors have called the consuming explosive. I sent the formula home to Germany, by a trusty hand, only a few hours ago."

"Capital!" Von Schwerin declared. "It was arranged in London, that?"

"Partly in London and partly here," Fischer replied.

Von Schwerin made a grimace.

"If you can find those who are willing to help you here, you are fortunate indeed," he sighed. "My life's work has lain amongst these people. In the days of peace, all seemed favourable to us. Since the war, even those people whom I thought my friends seem to have lost their heads, to have lost their reasoning powers."

"After all," Fischer muttered, "it is race calling to race. But come, we have more direct business on hand. Nikasti is here."

Von Schwerin nodded a little gloomily.

"Washington knows nothing of his coming," he observed. "I attended the Baron Yung's reception last week, informally. I threw out very broad hints, but Yung would not be drawn. Nikasti represents the Secret Service of Japan, unofficially and without responsibility."

"Nevertheless," Fischer pointed out, "what he says will reach the ear of his country, and reach it quickly. You've gone through the papers I sent you?"

"Carefully," Von Schwerin replied. "And the autograph letter?"

"That I have," Fischer announced. "I will fetch Nikasti."

He crossed the room and opened the door leading into the bedchambers.

"Are you there, Kato?" he cried.

"I am coming, sir," was the instant reply.

Nikasti appeared, a few moments later. He was carrying a dress coat on his arm, and he held a clothes brush in his hand. It was obvious that he had studied with nice care the details of his new part.

"You can sit down, Nikasti," Fischer invited. "This is the Baron von Schwerin. He has something to say to you."

Nikasti bowed very low. He declined the chair, however, to which Fischer pointed.

"I am your valet and the valet of Mr. Van Teyl," he murmured. "It is not fitting for me to be seated. I listen."

Von Schwerin drew his chair a little nearer.

"I plunge at once," he said, "into the middle of things. There is always the fear that we may be disturbed."

Nikasti inclined his head.

"It is best," he agreed.

"You are aware," Von Schwerin continued, "that the Imperial Government of Germany has already made formal overtures, through a third party, to the Emperor of Japan with reference to an alteration in our relations?"

"There was talk of this in Tokio," Nikasti observed softly. "Japan, however, is under obligations--treaty obligations. Her honour demands that these should be kept."

"The honour of a country," Baron von Schwerin acknowledged, "is, without doubt, a sacred charge upon her rulers, but above all things in heaven or on earth, the interests of her people must be their first consideration. If a time should come when the two might seem to clash, then it is the task of the statesman to recognise this fact."

Nikasti bowed.

"It is spoken," he confessed, "like a great man."

"Your country," Von Schwerin continued, "is at war with mine because it seemed to her rulers that her interests lay with the Allies rather than with Germany. I will admit that my country was at fault. We did not recognise to its full extent the value of friendship with Japan. We did not bid high enough for your favours. Asia concerned us very little. We looked upon the destruction of our interests there in the same spirit as that with which we contemplated the loss of our colonies. All that might happen would be temporary. Our influence in Asia, our colonies, will remain with us or perish, according to the result of the war in Europe. But our statesmen overlooked one thing."

"Our factories," Nikasti murmured.

"Precisely! We have had our agents all over the world for years. Some are good, a few are easily deceived. There is no country in the world where apparently so much liberty is granted to foreigners as in Japan. There is no country where the capacity for manufacture and output has been so grossly underestimated by our agents, as yours."

Nikasti smiled.

"I had something to do with that," he announced. "It was Karl Neumann, was it not, on whom you relied? I supplied him with much information."

Von Schwerin's face clouded for a moment.

"You mean that you fooled him, I suppose," he said. "Well, it is all part of the game. That is over now. We want your exports to Russia stopped."

"Ah!" Nikasti murmured reflectively. "Stopped!"

"We ask no favours," Von Schwerin continued. "The issue of the war is written across the face of the skies for those who care to read."

Nikasti looked downwards at the dress coat which he was carrying. Then he glanced up at Von Schwerin.

"Perhaps our eyes have been dazzled," he said. "Will you not interpret?"

"The end of the war will be a peace of exhaustion," Von Schwerin explained. "Our loftier dreams of conquest we must abandon. Germany has played her part, but Austria, alas! has failed. Peace will leave us all very much where we were. Very well, then, I ask you, what has Japan gained? You answer China? I deny it. Yet even if it were true, it will take you five hundred years to make a great country of China. Suppose for a moment you had been on the other side. What about Australia?... New Zealand?"

"Are those things under present consideration?" Nikasti queried.

"Why not?" Von Schwerin replied. "Listen. Close your exports to Russia within the next thirty days. Build up for yourselves a stock of ammunition, add to your fleet, and prepare. Within a year of the cessation of war, there is no reason why your national dream should not be realised. Your fleet may sail for San Francisco. The German fleet shall make a simultaneous attack upon the eastern coast of Massachusetts and New York."

"The German fleet," Nikasti repeated. "And England?"

Von Schwerin's eyes flashed for a moment.

"If the English fleet is still in being," he declared, "it will be a crippled and defeated fleet, but, for the sake of your point of view, I will assume that it exists. Even then there will be nothing to prevent the German fleet from steaming in what waters it pleases. If our shells fall upon New York on the day when your warships are sighted off the Californian coast, do you suppose that America could resist? With her seaboard, her fleet is contemptible. For her wealth, her army is a farce. She has neglected for a great many years to pay her national insurance. She is the one country in the world who can be bled for the price of empires."

Fischer, who had been smoking furiously, spat out the end of a fresh cigar.

"It will be a just retribution," he interposed, with smothered fierceness. "Under the guise of neutrality, America has been responsible for the lives of hundreds of thousands of my countrymen. That we never can, we never shall, forget. The wealth which makes these people fat is blood-money, and Germany will take her vengeance."

"For whom do you speak?" Nikasti inquired.

Von Schwerin rose from his place.

"For the greatest of all."

"Do I take anything but words to Tokio?" the Japanese asked softly.

Fischer unfolded a pocketbook and drew from it a parchment envelope.

"You take this letter," he said, "which I brought over myself from Berlin, signed and written not more than three weeks ago. I ask you to believe in no vague promises. I bring you the pledged faith of the greatest ruler on earth. What do you say, Nikasti? Will you accept our mission? Will you go back to Tokio and see the Emperor?"

Nikasti bowed.

"I will go back," he promised. "I will sail as soon as I can make arrangements. But I cannot tell you what the issue may be. We Japanese are not a self-seeking nation. Above and higher than all things are our ideals and our honour. I cannot tell what answer our Sovereign may give to this."

"These are the days when the truest patriotism demands the most sublime sacrifices," Von Schwerin declared. "Above all the ethics of individuals comes the supreme necessity of self-preservation."

The Japanese smiled slightly.

"Ah!" he said, "there speaks the philosophy of your country, Baron, the paean of materialism."

"The destinies of nations," Baron von Schwerin exclaimed, "are above the man-made laws of a sentimental religion! One needs, nowadays, more than to survive. It is necessary to flourish."

Nikasti stood suddenly to attention.

"It is Mr. Van Teyl who returns," he warned them.

He glided from the room, shaking out a little the dress coat which he had been carrying. The two men looked after him. Fischer threw his cigar savagely away and lit another.

"Curse these orientals!" he muttered. "They listen and listen, and one never knows. Van Teyl won't be here for hours. That was just an excuse to get away."

But there was a smile of triumph on Von Schwerin's lips.

"I know them better than you do, Fischer," he declared. "Nikasti is our man!" _

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