CHAPTER XXIX

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_ At five-and-twenty minutes past eight that evening Lutchester, who was waiting in the entrance hall of the Ritz-Carlton, became just a little restless. At half-past, his absorption in an evening paper, over the top of which he looked at every newcomer, was almost farcical. At five-and-twenty to nine Pamela arrived. He advanced down the lounge to meet her. Her face was inscrutable, her smile conventional. Yet she had come! He looked over his shoulder towards the men's coat room.

"Your brother?"

"I sent Jim to his club," she said. "I want to have a confidential talk with you, Mr. Lutchester."

"I am very flattered," he told her, with real earnestness.

She vanished for a few moments in the cloakroom, and reappeared, a radiant vision in deep blue silk. Her hair was gathered in a coil at the top of her head, and surmounted with an ornament of pearls.

"You are looking at my headdress," she remarked, as they walked into the room. "It is the style you admire, is it not?"

He murmured something vague, but he knew that he was forgiven. They were ushered to their places by a portly maitre d'hotel, and she approved of his table. It was set almost in an alcove, and was partially hidden from the other diners.

"Is this seclusion vanity or flattery?"

"As a matter of fact, it is rather a popular table," he told her. "We have an excellent view of the room, and yet one can talk here without being disturbed."

"To talk to you is exactly what I wish to do," she said, as they took their places. "We commence, if you please, with a question. Mr. Fischer thought that he had that formula and he hasn't. I could have sworn that it was in my possession--and it isn't. Where is it?"

"I took it to the War Office before I left England," he told her simply. "They will have the first few tons of the stuff ready next month."

"You!" she cried, "But where did you get it?"

"I happened to be first, that's all," he explained. "You see, I had the advantage of a little inside information. I could have exposed the whole affair if I had thought it wise. I preferred, however, to let matters take their course. Young Graham deserved all he got there, and I made sure of being the first to go through his papers. I'm afraid I must confess that I left a bogus formula for you."

"I had begun to suspect this," Pamela confessed. "You don't mind being put into the witness box, do you?" she added, as she pushed aside the menu with a little sigh of satisfaction. "How wonderfully you order an American dinner!"

"I am so glad I have chosen what you like," he said, "and as to being in the witness box--well, I am going to place myself in the confessional, and that is very much the same thing, isn't it?"

"To begin at the beginning, then--about that destroyer?"

"My mission over here was really important," he admitted. "I couldn't catch the _Lapland_, so the Admiralty sent me over."

"And your golf with Senator Hamblin? It wasn't altogether by accident you met him down at Baltusrol, was it?"

"It was not," he confessed, "I had reason to suspect that certain proposals from Berlin were to be put forward to the President either through his or Senator Hastings' mediation. There were certain facts in connection with them, which I desired to be the first to lay before the authorities."

She looked around the room and recognised some of her friends. For some reason or other she felt remarkably light-hearted.

"For a poor vanquished woman," she observed, turning back to Lutchester, "I feel extraordinarily gay to-night. Tell me some more."

He bowed.

"Mademoiselle Sonia," he proceeded, "has been a friend of mine since she sang in the cafes of Buda Pesth. I dined with her, however, because it had come to my knowledge that she was behaving in a very foolish manner."

Pamela nodded understandingly.

"She was the friend of Count Maurice Ziduski, wasn't she?"

"She is no longer," Lutchester replied. "She sailed for France this morning without seeing him. She has remembered that she is a Frenchwoman."

"It was you who reminded her!"

"Love so easily makes people forgetful," he said, "and I think that Sonia was very fond of Maurice Ziduski. She is a thoughtless, passionate woman, easily swayed through her affections, and she had no idea of the evil she was doing."

"So that disposes of Sonia," Pamela reflected.

"Sonia was only an interlude," Lutchester declared. "She really doesn't come into this affair at all. The one person who does come into it, whom you and I must speak of, is Fischer."

"A most interesting man," Pamela sighed. "I really think his wife would have a most exciting life."

"She would!" Lutchester agreed. "She'd probably be allowed to visit him once every fourteen days in care of a warder."

"Spite!" Pamela exclaimed, with a suspicious little quiver at the corner of her lips.

Lutchester shook his head.

"Fischer is too near the end of his rope for me to feel spiteful," he said, "though I am quite prepared to grant that he may be capable of considerable mischief yet. A man who has the sublime effrontery to attempt to come to an agreement with two countries, each behind the other's back, is a little more than Machiavellian, isn't he?"

"Is that true of Mr. Fischer?"

"Absolutely," Lutchester assured her. "He is over here for the purpose of somehow or other making it known informally in Washington that Germany would be willing to pledge herself to an alliance with America against Japan, after the war, if America will alter her views as to the export of munitions to the Allies."

"Well, that's a reasonable proposition, isn't it, from his point of view?" Pamela remarked. "It may not be a very agreeable one from yours, but it is certainly one which he has a right to make."

"Entirely," Lutchester agreed, "but where he goes wrong is that his primary object in coming here was to meet Hie chief of the Japanese Secret Service, to whom he has made a proposition of precisely similar character."

Pamela set down her glass.

"You are not in earnest!"

"Absolutely."

"Nikasti?"

"Precisely! He came all the way from Japan to confer with Fischer. Probably, if we knew the whole truth, those rooms at the Plaza Hotel, and the social partnership of your brother and Fischer, were arranged for no other reason than to provide a safe personality for Nikasti in this country, and a safe place for him to talk things over with Fischer."

"Mr. Fischer was paying nearly the whole of the expenses of the Plaza suite," Pamela observed thoughtfully.

"Naturally," Lutchester replied. "Your brother's name was a good, safe name to get behind. But to conclude with our friend Nikasti. He is supposed to leave New York next Saturday, and to carry to the Emperor of Japan an autograph letter from a nameless person, promising him, if Japan will cease the export of munitions to Russia, the aid of Germany in her impending campaign against America."

"An autograph letter, did you say?" Pamela almost gasped.

"An autograph letter," Lutchester repeated firmly. "Now don't you agree with me that Fischer's game is just a little too daring?"

"It is preposterous!" she cried.

"I have a theory," Lutchester continued, "that Fischer was never intended to use more than one of these letters. It was intended that he should study the situation here, approach one side, and, if unsuccessful, try the other. Fischer, however, conceived a more magnificent idea. He seems to be trying both at the same time. It is the sublime egotism of the Teutonic mind."

"It is monstrous!" Pamela exclaimed indignantly.

"It is almost as monstrous," Lutchester agreed, "as his daring to raise his eyes to you, although, so far as you are concerned, I believe that he is as honest as the man knows how to be."

"And why," she asked, "do you credit him with so much good faith?"

"Because," Lutchester replied, "if he had not been actuated by personal motives, he would never have sought you out as an intermediary. There are other sources open to him, by means of which he could make equally sure of reaching the President's ear. His idea was to impress you. It was foolish but natural."

Pamela was deep in thought. There was an angry spot of colour burning in her cheek.

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Lutchester," she persisted, "that this afternoon, say, when with every appearance of earnestness he was begging me to put these propositions before my uncle, he had really made precisely similar overtures to Japan?"

"I give you my word that this is the truth," Lutchester assured her solemnly.

She looked at him with something almost like wonder in her eyes.

"But you?" she exclaimed. "How do you know this? How can you be sure of it?"

"I have seen the autograph letter which Nikasti has in his possession," he announced.

"You mean that Mr. Fischer showed it to you?" she exclaimed incredulously.

Lutchester hesitated.

"There are methods," he said, "which those who fight in the dark places for their country are forced sometimes to make use of. I have seen the letter. I have half convinced those who represent Japan in this matter of Fischer's duplicity. With your help I am hoping wholly to do so."

Pamela leaned for a moment back in her chair.

"Really," she declared, "I am beginning to have the feeling that I am living almost too rapidly. Let us have a breathing spell. I wonder what all these other people are talking about."

"Probably," he suggested, with a little glance around, "about themselves. We will follow their example. Will you marry me, please, Miss Van Teyl?"

"We haven't even come to the ice yet," she sighed, "and you pass from high politics to flagrant personalities. Are you a sensationalist, Mr. Lutchester?"

"Not in the least," he protested. "I simply asked you an extremely important question quite calmly."

"It isn't a question that should be asked calmly," she objected.

"I have immense self-control," he told her, "but if you'd like me to abandon it--"

"For heaven's sake, no!" she interrupted. "Tell me more about Mr. Fischer."

"You won't forget to answer my little question later on, will you?" he begged. "To proceed, then. I spent some little time this afternoon with your chief of the police here, and I fancy that the person you speak of is becoming a little too blatant even for a broad-minded country like this. He belongs to an informal company of wealthy sympathisers with Germany, who propose to start a campaign of destruction at all the factories manufacturing munitions for the Allies. They have put aside--I believe it is several million dollars, for purposes of bribery. They don't seem to realise, as my friend pointed out to me this afternoon, that the days for this sort of thing in New York have passed. Some of them will be in prison before they know where they are."

"Exactly why did you come to America?" she asked, a little abruptly.

"To meet Nikasti and to look after Fischer."

"Well, you seem to have done that pretty effectually!"

"Also," he went on calmly, "to keep an eye upon you."

"Professionally?"

"You ask me to give away too many secrets," he whispered, leaning towards her.

She made a little grimace.

"Tell me some more about your little adventure in Fifth Avenue?" she begged.

He smiled grimly.

"You wouldn't believe me," he reminded her, "but it really was one of Fischer's little jokes. It very nearly came off, too. As a matter of fact," he went on, "Fischer isn't really clever. He is too obstinate, too convinced in his own mind that things must go the way he wants them to, that Fate is the servant of his will. It's a sort of national trait, you know, very much like the way we English bury our heads in the sand when we hear unpleasant truths. The last thing Fischer wants is advertisement, and yet he goes to some of his Fourteenth Street friends and unearths a popular desperado to get rid of me. The fellow happens most unexpectedly to fail, and now Fischer has to face a good many awkward questions and a good deal of notoriety. No, I don't think Fischer is really clever."

Pamela sighed.

"In that case, I suppose I shall have to say 'No' to him," she decided. "After waiting all this time, I couldn't bear to be married to a fool."

"You won't be," he assured her cheerfully.

"More British arrogance," she murmured. "Now see what's going to happen to us!"

A tall, elderly man, with smooth white hair plastered over his forehead, very precisely dressed, and with a gait so careful as to be almost mincing, was approaching their table. Pamela held out her hands.

"My dear uncle!" she exclaimed. "And I thought that you and aunt never dined at restaurants!"

Mr. Hastings stood with his fingers resting lightly upon the table. He glanced at Lutchester without apparent recognition.

"You remember Mr. Lutchester?" Pamela murmured.

Mr. Hastings' manner lacked the true American cordiality, but he hastened to extend his hand.

"Of course!" he declared. "I was not fortunate enough, however, to see much of you the other evening, Mr. Lutchester. We have several mutual friends whom I should be glad to hear about."

"I shall pay my respects to Mrs. Hastings, if I may, very shortly," Lutchester promised.

"Are you with friends here, uncle?" Pamela inquired.

"We are the guests of Mr. Oscar Fischer," the Senator announced.

Pamela raised her eyebrows.

"So you know Mr. Fischer, uncle?"

"Naturally," Mr. Hastings replied, with some dignity. "Oscar Fischer is one of the most important men in the State which I represent. He is a man of great wealth and industry and immense influence."

Pamela made a little grimace. Her uncle noticed it and frowned.

"He has just been telling us of his voyage with you, Pamela. Perhaps, if Mr. Lutchester can spare you," he went on, with a little bow across the table, "you will come and take your coffee with us. Your aunt is leaving for Washington, probably to-morrow, and wishes to arrange for you to travel with her. Mr. Lutchester may also, perhaps, give us the pleasure of his company for a few minutes," he added, after a slight but obvious pause.

"Thank you," Pamela answered quickly, "I am Mr. Lutchester's guest this evening. If you are still here, I shall love to come and speak to aunt for a moment later on. If not, I will ring up to-morrow morning."

The bland, almost episcopal serenity of Senator Hastings' face was somewhat disturbed. It was obvious that the situation displeased him.

"I think, Pamela," he said, "that you had better come and speak to your aunt before you leave."

His bow to Lutchester was the bow of a politician to an adversary. He made his way back in leisurely fashion to the table from which he had come, exchanging a few words with many acquaintances. Pamela watched him with a twinkle in her eyes.

"I am becoming so unpopular," she murmured. "I can read in my uncle's tone that my aunt and he disapprove of our dining together here. And as for Mr. Fischer. I'm afraid he'll break off our prospective alliance."

Lutchester smiled.

"Prospective is the only word to use," he observed. "By the bye, are you particularly fond of your uncle?"

"Not riotously," she admitted. "He has been kind to me once or twice, but he's rather a starchy old person."

"In that case," Lutchester decided, "we won't interfere." _

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