PAWNS COUNI

E.PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM


22441% 11.17


SVERI
5 TASE
i
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY


Plank
illing 14157
PAHAS. E.LAURIAT CO., 1
(IMPORTERSTBOOKSELLERS


26





THE PAWNS COUNT









SHE SHOOK HER HEAD. I SHOULD OBJECT MOST STRONGLY
TO NOCTURNAL DISTURBERS OF MY SLUMBERS!”
FRONTISPIECE. See page 288.






PS ON MY SL9T
see gornje .
.
.


THE
PAWNS COUNT
BY
E, PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
F. VAUX WILSON

NONREFERT
BONOS-HABEASZ
EQVAM.MVLTOS
WVAO
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1918


22447.11.17
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY
Copyright, 1918.
BY LITTLE, Brown, AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved
Published, March, 1918
Reprinted, March, 1918; April, 1918


FOREWORD
“I am for England and England only,” John
Lutchester, the Englishman, asserted.
“I am for Japan and Japan only,” Nikasti, the
Jap, insisted.
“I am for Germany first and America after-
wards,” Oscar Fischer, the German-American pro-
nounced.
“I am for America first, America only, America
always,” Pamela Van Teyl, the American girl, de-
clared.
They were all right except the German-American.





THE PAWNS COUNT
CHAPTER I
Méfiez-Vous !
Taisez-Vous!
Les Oreilles Ennemies Vous Ecoutent!
The usual little crowd was waiting in the lobby
of a fashionable London restaurant a few minutes
before the popular luncheon hour. Pamela Van
Teyl, a very beautiful American girl, dressed in the
extreme of fashion, which she seemed somehow to
justify, directed the attention of her companions to
the notice affixed to the wall facing them.
“ Except,” she declared, “ for you poor dears who
have been hurt, that is the first thing I have seen
in England which makes me realise that you are at
war."
The younger of her two escorts, Captain Richard
Holderness, who wore the uniform of a well-known
cavalry regiment, glanced at the notice a little im-
patiently.
“What rot it seems ! ” he exclaimed. “We get
fed up with that sort of thing in France. It's
always the same at every little railway station
and every little inn. “Méfiez-vous! Taisez-vous !'
They might spare us over here."
John Lutchester, a tall, clean-shaven man, dressed


THE PAWNS COUNT
in civilian clothes, raised his eyeglass and read out
the notice languidly.
“Well, I don't know,” he observed. “Some of
you Service fellows — not the Regulars, of course
- do gas a good deal when you come back. I don't
suppose you any of you know anything, so it doesn't
really matter," he added, glancing at his watch.
“ Army's full of Johnnies, who come from God
knows where nowadays," Holderness assented
gloomily. “ No wonder they can't keep their mouths
shut.”
“ Seems to me you need them all,” Miss Pamela
Van Teyl remarked with a smile.
“Of course we do,” Holderness assented, " and
Heaven forbid that any of us Regulars should say
a word against them. Jolly good stuff in them, too,
as the Germans found out last month."
“ All the same," Lutchester continued, still study-
ing the notice, “news does run over London like
quicksilver. If you step down to the American bar
here, for instance, you'll find that Charles is one of
the best-informed men about the war in London.
He has patrons in the Army, in the Navy, and in
the Flying Corps, and it's astonishing how com-
municative they seem to become after the second
or third cocktail.”
6 Cocktail, mark you, Miss Van Teyl,” Holder-
ness pointed out. “We poor Englishmen could
keep our tongues from wagging before we acquired
some of your American habits.”
- The habits are all right,” Pamela retorted.
6 It's your heads that are wrong."


THE PAWNS COUNT
3
“ The most valued product of your country,” Lut-
chester murmured,“ is more dangerous to our hearts
than to our heads."
She made a little grimace and turned away, hold-
ing out her hand to a new arrival — a tall, broad-
shouldered man, with a strong, cold face and keen,
grey eyes, aggressive even behind his gold-rimmed
spectacles. There was a queer change in his face
as his eyes met Pamela's. He seemed suddenly to
become more human. His pleasure at seeing her
was certainly more than the usual transatlantic
politeness.
“Mr. Fischer,” she exclaimed, “ they are saying
hard things about our country! Please protect
me.”
He bowed over her fingers. Then he looked up.
His tone was impressive.
“If I thought that you needed protection, Miss
Van Teyl —"
“ Well, I can assure you that I do,” she inter-
rupted, laughing. “You know my friends, don't
you?"
“I think I have that pleasure,” the American re-
plied, shaking hands with Lutchester and Holder-
ness.
“Now we'll get an independent opinion,” the
former observed, pointing to the wall. “We were
discussing that notice, Mr. Fischer. You're almost
as much a Londoner as a New Yorker. What do
you think? — is it superfluous or not? "
Fischer read it out and smiled.
“Well,” he admitted, “ in America we don't lay


THE PAWNS COUNT
much store by that sort of thing, but I don't know
as we're very good judges about what goes on over
here. I shouldn't call this place, anyway, a hot-
bed of intrigue. Excuse me!”
He moved off to greet some incoming guests — a
well-known stockbroker and his partner. Lutches-
ter looked after him curiously.
“Is Mr. Fischer one of your typical millionaires,
Miss Van Teyl?” he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“We have no typical millionaires,” she assured
him. “ They come from all classes and all States."
“ Fischer is a Westerner, isn't he?"
Pamela nodded, but did not pursue the conversa-
tion. Her eyes were fixed upon a girl who had just
entered, and who was looking a little doubtfully
around, a girl plainly but smartly dressed, with
fluffy light hair, dark eyes, and a very pleasant ex-
pression. Pamela, who was critical of her own sex,
found the newcomer attractive.
“Is that, by any chance, one of our missing
guests, Captain Holderness? " she inquired, turning
towards him. “I don't know why, but I have an
idea that it is your sister.”
“By Jove, yes !” the young man assented, step-
ping forward. “Here we are, Molly, and at last
you are going to meet Miss Van Teyl. I've bored
Molly stiff, talking about you," he explained, as
Pamela held out her hand..
The girls, who stood talking together for a mo-
ment, presented rather a striking contrast. Molly
Holderness was pretty but usual. Pamela was beau-


THE PAWNS COUNT
5
tiful and unusual. She had the long, slim body of
a New York girl, the complexion and eyes of a
Southerner, the savoir faire of a Frenchwoman.
She was extraordinarily cosmopolitan, and yet ex-
traordinarily American. She impressed every one,
as she did Molly Holderness at that moment, with
a sense of charm. One could almost accept as truth
her own statement — that she valued her looks
chiefly because they helped people to forget that she
had brains.
“I won't admit that I have ever been bored, Miss
Van Teyl,” Molly Holderness assured her, “but
Dick has certainly told me all sorts of wonderful
things about you — how kind you were in New York,
and what a delightful surprise it was to see you
down at the hospital at Nice. I am afraid he must
have been a terrible crock then.”
“ Got well in no time as soon as Miss Van Teyl
came along,” Holderness declared. “It was a bit
dreary down there at first. None of my lot were
sent south, and a familiar face means a good deal
when you've got your lungs full of that rotten gas
and are feeling like nothing on earth. I wonder
where that idiot Sandy is. I told him to be here
a quarter of an hour before you others — thought
we might have had a quiet chat first. Will you
stand by the girls for a moment, Lutchester, while
I have a look round?” he added.
He hobbled away, one of the thousands who were
thronging the streets and public places of London —
brave, simple-minded young men, all of them, with
tangled recollections in their brains of blood and fire


THE PAWNS COUNT
and hell, and a game leg or a lost arm to remind
them that the whole thing was not a nightmare. He
looked a little disconsolately around, and was on the
point of rejoining the others when the friend for
whom he was searching came hurriedly through the
turnstile doors.
“ Sandy, old chap," Holderness exclaimed, with
an air of relief, “here you are at last!”
“ Cheero, Dick!” was the light-hearted reply.
“ Fearfully sorry I'm late, but listen — just listen
for one moment.”
The newcomer threw his hat and coat to the at-
tendant. He was a rather short, freckled young
man, with a broad, high forehead and light-coloured
hair. His eyes just now were filled with the enthu-
siasm which trembled in his tone.
“ Dick,” he continued, gripping his friend's arm
tightly, “ I'm late, I know, but I've great news. I've
motored straight up from Salisbury Plain. I've
done it! I swear to you, Dick, I've done it!”
“ Done what? ” Holderness demanded, a little be-
wildered.
“ I've perfected my explosive — the thing I was
telling you about last week,” was the triumphant
reply. “The whole world's struggling for it, Dick.
The German chemists have been working night and
day for three years, just for one little formula, and
I've got it! One of my shells, which fell in a wood
at daylight this morning, killed every living thing
within a mile of it. The bark fell off the trees, and
the labourers in a field beyond threw down their
implements and ran for their lives. It's the prin-


THE PAWNS COUNT
ciple of intensification. The poison feeds on its own
vapours. The formula — I've got it in my pocket-
book " sa
“ Look here, old fellow,” Holderness interrupted,
“it's all splendid, of course, and I'm dying to hear
you talk about it, but come along now and be intro-
duced to Miss Van Teyl. Molly's over there, wait-
ing, and we're all half starved.”
“So am I,” was the cheerful answer. “Hullo,
Lutchester, how are you? Just one moment. I
must get a wash. I motored straight through, and
I'm choked with dust. Where do I go?”
" I'll show you,” Lutchester volunteered.
“ Hurry up."
The two men sprang up the stairs towards the
dressing-room, and Holderness strolled back to
where his sister and Pamela were talking to a small,
dark young man, with rather high cheek-bones and
olive complexion. Pamela turned around with a
smile.
“ I have found an old friend," she, told him.
“ Baron Sunyea — Captain Holderness. Baron
Sunyea used to be in the Japanese Embassy at
Washington.”
The two men shook hands.
“I was interested,” the Japanese said slowly, “in
your conversation just now about that notice. Your
young friend was telling you news very loudly in-
deed, it seemed to me, which you would not like
known across the North Sea. Am I not right? "
“In a sense you are, of course,” Holderness ad-
mitted, “but here at Henry's — why, the place is


8
THE PAWNS COUNT
like a club. Where are the enemies' ears to come
from, I should like to know?”
Where we least expect to find them, as a rule,"
was the grave reply.
“Quite right,” Lutchester, who had just rejoined
them, agreed. “They still say, you know, that our
home Secret Service is just as bad as our foreign
Secret Service is good.”
Holderness smiled in somewhat superior fashion.
“ Can't say that I have much faith in that spy
talk,” he declared. “No doubt there was any quan-
tity of espionage before the war, but it's pretty well
weeded out now. I say, how good civilisation is !”
he went on, his eyes dwelling lovingly on the interior
of the restaurant. “ Tophole, isn't it, Lutchester
- these smart girls, with their furs and violets and
perfumes, the little note of music in the distance,
the cheerful clatter of plates, the smiling faces of
the waiters, and the undercurrent of pleasant voices.
Don't laugh at me, please, Miss Van Teyl. I've
three weeks more of it, by George — perhaps more.
I don't go up before my Board till Thursday
fortnight. Dash it, I wish Sandy would hurry
up!”
“You never told me how you got your wound,”
Pamela observed, as the conversation flagged for a
moment.
“ Can't even remember," was the careless reply.
“We were all scrapping away as hard as we could
one afternoon, and nearly a dozen of us got the
knock, all at the same time. It's quite all right
now, though, except for the stiffness. It was the


THE PAWNS COUNT
gas did me in. . . . What a fellow Sandy is! You
people must be starving."
They waited for another five minutes. Then
Holderness limped towards the stairs with a little
imprecation. Lutchester stopped him.
“Don't you go, Holderness," he begged. “I'll
find him and bring him down by the scruff of the
neck."
He strode up the stairs on a mission which ended
in unexpected failure. Presently he returned, a
slight frown upon his forehead.
“I am awfully sorry," he announced, “but I can't
find him anywhere. I left him washing his hands,
and he said he'd be down in a moment. Are you
quite sure that we haven't missed him?”
“ There hasn't been a sign of him," Molly declared
promptly. “I am so hungry that my eyes have been
glued upon the staircase all the time.”
Pamela, who had slipped away a few moments be-
fore, rejoined them with a little expression of sur-
prise.
“ Isn't Captain Graham here yet? ” she asked in-
credulously.
“ Not a sign of him,” Holderness replied. « Queer
set out, isn't it? We won't wait a moment longer.
Take my sister and Miss Van Teyl in, will you?"
he went on, laying his hand on Lutchester's shoulder.
“ Ferrani will look after you. I'll follow directly.”
The chief maître d'hôtel advanced to meet them
with a gesture of invitation, and led them to a table
arranged for five. The restaurant was crowded, and
the coloured band, from the space against the wall


το
THE PAWNS COUNT
on their left, was playing a lively one-step. Fer-
rani was buttonholed by an important client as they
crossed the threshold, and they lingered for a mo-
ment, waiting for his guidance. Whilst they stood
there, a curious thing happened. The leader of
the orchestra seemed to draw his fingers recklessly
across the strings of his instrument and to produce
a discord which was almost appalling. A half-
pained, half-amused exclamation rippled down the
room. For a moment the music ceased. The con-
ductor, who was responsible for the disturbance,
was sitting motionless, his hand hanging down by
his side. His features remained imperturbable, but
the gleam of his white teeth, and a livid little streak
under his eyes gave to his usually good-humoured
face an utterly altered, almost a malignant expres-
sion. Ferrani stepped across and spoke to him for
a moment angrily. The man took up his instru-
ment, waved his hand, and the music re-commenced
in a subdued note. Pamela turned to the chief
maître d'hôtel, who had now re-joined them.
“ What an extraordinary breakdown!” she ex-
claimed. “Is your leader a man of nerves ? "
“ Never have I heard such a thing in all my days,"
Ferrani assured them fervently. “ Joseph is one of
the most wonderful performers in the world. His
control over his instrument is marvellous. . . . Cap-
tain Holderness asked particularly for this table.”
They seated themselves at the table reserved for
them against the wall. Their cicerone was with-
drawing with a low bow, but Pamela leaned over to
speak to him,


THE PAWNS COUNT
II
“ Your music," she told him, " is quite wonderful.
The orchestra consists entirely of Americans, I sup-
pose? »
“Entirely, madam,” Ferrani assented. “They :
are real Southern darkies, from Joseph, the leader,
down to little Peter, who blows the motor-horn."
Pamela's interest in the matter remained unabated.
“I tell you it makes one feel almost homesick to
hear them play,” she went on, with a little sigh.
“ Did they come direct from the States ? "
Ferrani shook his head.
“ From Paris, madam. Before that, for a little
time, they were at the Winter Garden in Berlin.
They made quite a European tour of it before they
arrived here.”
“ And he is the leader — the man whom you call
Joseph," Pamela observed. “A broad, good-
humoured face -- not much intelligence, I should im-
agine.”
Ferrani's protest was vigorous and gesticulatory.
He evidently had ideas of his own concerning
Joseph.
“More, perhaps, than you would think, madam,"
he declared. “He knows how to make a bargain,
believe me. It cost us more than I would like to
tell you to get these fellows here."
Pamela looked him in the eyes.
“Be careful, Monsieur Ferrani,” she advised,
" that it does not cost you more to get rid of them.”
She leaned back in her place, apparently tired of
the subject, and Ferrani, a little puzzled, made his
bow and withdrew. The music was once more in


12
THE PAWNS COUNT
full swing. Their luncheon was served, and Lut-
chester did his best to entertain his companions.
Their eyes, however, every few seconds strayed to-
wards the door. There was no sign of the missing
guest.


CHAPTER II
Molly Holderness, for whom Graham's absence
possessed, perhaps, more significance than the others,
relapsed very soon into a strained and anxious si-
lence. Pamela and Lutchester, on the other hand,
divided their attention between a very excellent
luncheon and an even flow of personal, almost in-
quisitorial conversation.
“ You will find,” Pamela warned her companion
almost as they took their places, “ that I am a very
curious person. I am more interested in people than
in events. Tell me something about your work at
the War Office?"
“I am not at the War Office," he replied.
« Well, what is it that you do, then? ” she asked.
“ Captain Holderness told me that you had been out
in France, fighting, but that you had some sort of
official position at home now.”
“I am at the Ministry of Munitions,” he ex-
plained.
“Well, tell me about that, then? ” she suggested.
“ Is it as exciting as fighting?"
He shook his head.
“ It has advantages,” he admitted, “ but I should
scarcely say that excitement figured amongst them.”
She looked at him thoughtfully. Lutchester was
a little over thirty-five years of age, tall and of
plained.


14
THE PAWNS COUNT
sinewy build. His colouring was neutral, his com-
plexion inclined to be pale, his mouth straight and
firm, his grey eyes rather deep-set. Without pos-
sessing any of the stereotyped qualifications, he was
sufficiently good-looking.
; “I wonder you didn't prefer soldiering,” she ob-
served.
He smiled for a moment, and Pamela felt unrea-
sonably annoyed at the twinkle in his eyes.
“I am not a soldier by profession,” he said, " but
I went out with the Expeditionary Force and had a
year of it. They kept me here, after a slight wound,
to take up my old work again.”
“ Your old work,” she repeated. “I didn't know
there was such a thing as a Ministry of Munitions
before the war.”
He deliberately changed the conversation, direct-
ing Pamela's attention to the crowded condition of
the room.
“ Gay scene, isn't it?" he remarked.
“ Very!" she assented drily.
“Do you come here to dance?" he inquired.
She shook her head.
“ You must remember that I have been living in
Paris for some months," she told him. “ You won't
be annoyed if I tell you that the way you English
people are taking the war simply maddens me.
Your young soldiers talk about it as though it were
a sort of picnic, your middle-aged clubmen seem to
think that it was invented to give them a fresh in-
terest in their newspapers, and the rest of you seem
to think of nothing but the money you are making.


THE PAWNS COUNT
15
And Paris, ... No, I don't think I should care to
dance here!”
Lutchester nodded, but Pamela fancied somehow
or other that his attitude was not wholly sympa-
thetic. His tone, with its slight note of admonition,
irritated her.
“ You must be careful,” he said, “not to be too
much misled by externals."
Pamela opened her lips for a quick reply, but
checked herself.
Captain Holderness and Ferrani had entered the
room and were approaching their table, talking
earnestly. The latter especially was looking per-
plexed and anxious,
“It's the queerest thing I ever knew,” Holderness
pronounced. “We've searched every hole and cor-
ner upstairs, and there isn't a sign of Sandy."
“ Have you tried the bar?” Lutchester inquired.
“Both the bar and the grillroom,” Ferrani as-
sured him.
“If he had been suddenly taken ill " Molly mur-
mured.
“ But there is no place in which he could have
been taken ill which we have not searched,” Ferrani
reminded her.
“ And besides,” Holderness intervened, “ Sandy
was in the very pink of health, and bubbling over
with high-spirits."
“ One noticed that," Lutchester remarked, a little
drily.
“He might almost have been called garrulous,"
Pamela agreed.


16
THE PAWNS COUNT
Ferrani took grave leave of them, and Holderness
seated himself at the table.
“Well, let's get on with luncheon, anyway," he
advised. “It's no good bothering. The best thing
we can do is to conclude that the impossible has
happened — that Sandy has met with some pals and
will be here presently.”
“Or possibly,” Lutchester suggested, “ that he
has done what certainly seems the most reasonable
thing - gone straight off to the War Office with his
formula and forgotten all about us. Let us return
the compliment and forget all about him."
They finished their luncheon a little more cheer-
fully. As the cigarettes were handed round,
Pamela's eyes looked longingly at a tray of Turkish
coffee which was passing.
“ I'm a rotten host,” Holderness declared, “but,
to tell you the truth, this queer prank of Sandy's
has driven everything else out of my mind. Here,
Hassan!”
The coloured man in gorgeous oriental livery
turned at once with a smile. He approached the
table, bowing to each of them in turn. Pamela
watched him intently, and, as his eyes met hers,
Hassan's hands began to shake.
“ The waiter is bringing us ordinary coffee,"
Holderness explained. “ Please countermand it and
bring us Turkish coffee for four.”
The man had lost his savoir faire. His wonderful
smile had turned into something sickly, his bland
speech of thanks into a mumble. He turned away
almost sheepishly.


THE PAWNS COUNT
17
ren
“ Hassan doesn't seem to like us to-day,” Molly
remarked.
“I should have said that he was drunk,”
her brother observed, looking after him cu-
riously.
There was certainly something the matter with
Hassan, for it was at least a quarter of an hour
before he reappeared and served his specially pre-
pared concoction with the usual ceremony but with
more restraint. Molly and the two men, after Has-
san had sprinkled the contents of his mysterious
little flask into their coffee, gave him their hands for
the customary salute. When he came to Pamela he
hesitated. She shook her head and he fell back,
bowing respectfully, his hand tracing cabalistic
signs across his heart. For a moment before he de-
parted, he raised his eyes and glanced at her. It
was like the mute appeal of some hurt or frightened
animal.
“ You don't approve of Hassan's little cere-
mony? ” Lutchester asked her.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“In America,” she observed, “I think we look
upon coloured people of any sort a little differently.
Well, we've certainly given your friend a chance,"
she went on, glancing at the little jewelled watch
upon her wrist. “We've outstayed almost every
one here."
Their host paid the bill, and they strolled reluc-
tantly towards the door, Holderness and Pamela a
few steps behind.
6 Now what are your sister and Mr. Lutchester


20
THE PAWNS COUNT
who had been saying farewell to his guests, turned
towards her.
“ You are not thinking of the trip home yet, Miss
Van Teyl?” he asked.
“Oh, I don't know,” she answered a little
evasively. “ I'm out of humour with London just
now.”
“ Perhaps we shall be fellow-passengers on Thurs-
day? ” he ventured. “I am going over on the New
York.”
“ I never make plans,” she told him.
“ In any case,” Mr. Fischer continued, “I shall
anticipate our early meeting in New York. I heard
from your brother only yesterday.”
She looked at him with a slight frown.
“From James ? "
Mr. Fischer nodded.
6 Why, I didn't know,” she observed, “ that you
and he were acquainted.”
“ I have had large transactions with his firm, and
naturally I have seen a good deal of Mr. Van Teyl,”
the other explained. “ He looks after the interests
of us Western clients.”
Pamela turned a little abruptly away, and Lut-
chester walked with her to the door.
“ You will let me see that they bring your car
round?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“ Thank you, no,” she replied, holding out her
hand. “I have not yet said good-by to Captain
Holderness and his sister. Good-by, Mr. Lutches-
ter!”


THE PAWNS COUNT
21
Her farewell was purposely chilly. It seemed as
though the slight sparring in which they had in-
dulged throughout luncheon-time, had found its cul-
mination in an antipathy which she had no desire to
conceal. Lutchester, however, only smiled.
“Nowadays,” he observed, " that is a word which
it is never necessary to use.”
She withdrew her hand from his somewhat too
tenacious clasp. Something in his manner puzzled
as well as irritated her.
“Do you mean that you, too, are thinking of
taking a holiday from your strenuous labours? " she
asked. “ Perhaps America is the safest country in
the world just now for an Englishman who —”
She stopped short, realising the lengths towards
which her causeless pique was carrying her.
“Prefers departmental work to fighting, were you
going to add? he said quietly. “Well, perhaps you
are right. At any rate, I will content myself by
saying au revoir.”
He passed through the turnstile door and disap-
peared. Pamela made her adieux to Holderness and
his sister, and then, recognising some acquaintances,
turned back into the restaurant to speak to them.
Fischer, who had just received his hat and cane
from the cloakroom attendant, stood watching her.


CHAPTER III
Pamela, after a brief conversation with her friends,
once more left the restaurant. In the lobby she
called Ferrani to her.
“ Has Mr. Fischer gone, Ferrani?” she asked.
“ Not two minutes ago," the man replied. “ You
wish to speak to him? I can stop him even now.”
She shook her head.
“ On the contrary,” she said drily, “Mr. Fischer
represents a type of my countrymen of whom I am
not very fond. He is a great patron of yours, is he
not? ”
“ He is a large shareholder in the company,” Fer-
rani confessed.
“ Then your restaurant will prosper,” she told
him. “Mr. Fischer has the name of being very for-
tunate. . . . That was a wonderful luncheon you
gave us to-day.”
“Madame is very kind.”
“ Will you do me a favour?"
Ferrani's gesture was all-expressive. Words
were entirely superfluous.
"I want two addresses, please. First, the address
of Joseph, your head musician, and, secondly, the
address of Hassan, your coffee-maker.”
Ferrani effectually concealed any surprise he
might have felt. He tore a page from his pocket-
book.


THE PAWNS COUNT
23
wspaper in Pameterrani
“ Both I know,” he declared. “Hassan lodges at
a shop eighty yards away. The name is Haines,
and there are newspaper placards outside the door.”
“ That is quite enough,” Pamela murmured.
“ As for Monsieur Joseph,” Ferrani continued,
“ that is a different matter. He has, I understand,
a small flat in Tower Mansions, Tower Street, lead-
ing off the Edgware Road. The number is 18C.
So!"
He wrote it down and passed it to her. Pamela
thanked him and stood up.
“ Now that I have done as you asked me," Fer-
rani concluded, “let me add a word. Both these
men are already off duty and have left the restau-
rant. If you wish to communicate with either of
them, I advise you to do so by letter."
“ You are a very courteous gentleman, Mr. Fer-
rani,” Pamela declared, dropping him a little mock
curtsey, “and good morning!”
She made her way into the street outside, shook
her head to the commissionaire's upraised whistle,
and strolled along until she came to a cross street
down which several motor-cars were waiting. She
approached one — a very handsome limousine — end
checked the driver who would have sprung from his
seat.
“ George," she said, “I am going to pay a call at
a disreputable-looking news-shop, just where I am
pointing. You can't bring the car there, as the
street is too narrow. You might follow me on foot
and be about.”
The young man touched his hat and obeyed. A


24
THE PAWNS COUNT
few yards down the street Pamela found her destina-
tion, and entered a gloomy little shop. A slatternly
woman looked at her curiously from behind the coun-
ter.
“I am told that Hassan lodges here, the coffee-
maker from Henry's,” Pamela began.
The woman looked at her in a peculiar fashion.
“ Well?”
“I wish to see him."
“ You can't, then,” was the curt answer. “ He's
at his prayers.”
“At what?” Pamela exclaimed.
“At his prayers,” the woman repeated brusquely.
“ There,” she added, throwing open the door which
led into the premises behind, “ can't you hear him,
poor soul? He's been pinching some more charms
from ladies' bracelets, or something of the sort, I
reckon. He's always in trouble. He goes on like
this for an hour or so, and then he forgives him-
self.”
Pamela stood by the open door and listened —
listened to a strange, wailing chant, which rose and
fell with almost weird monotony.
" Very interesting,” she observed. “I have heard
that sort of thing before. Now will you kindly tell
Hassan that I wish to speak to him, or shall I go
and find him for myself ? "
“ Well, you've got some brass!” the woman de-
clared, with a sneer.
“ And some gold,” Pamela assented, passing a
pound note over to the woman.
“Do you want to see him alone? ” the latter


THE PAWNS COUNT
25
asked, almost snatching at the note, but still regard-
ing Pamela with distrustful curiosity.
“Of course," was the calm reply.
The woman opened her lips and closed them again,
sniffed, and led the way down a short passage, at
the end of which was a door.
“There you are," she muttered, throwing it open.
“ You've arst for it, mind. 'Tain't my busi-
ness."
She slouched her way back again into the shop.
At first Pamela could scarcely see anything except a
dark figure on his knees before a closed and
shrouded window. Then she saw Hassan rise to
his feet, saw the glitter of his eyes.
“ Pull up the blind, Hassan,” she directed.
He came a step nearer to her. The gloom in the
apartment was extraordinary. Only his shape and
his eyes were visible.
“Do as I tell you,” she ordered. “ Pull up the
blind. It will be better.”
He hesitated. Then he obeyed. Even then the
interior of the room seemed shadowy and obscure.
Pamela could only see, in contrast with the rest of
the house, that it was wonderfully and spotlessly
clean. In one corner, barely concealed by a low
screen, his bed stood upon the floor. Hassan mut-
tered something in an Oriental tongue. Pamela in-
terrupted him. She spoke in the soothing tone one
uses towards a child.
“ That's all right, Hassan,” she said. “Sorry to
have interrupted you at your prayers, but it had to
be done. You know me?”


26
THE PAWNS COUNT
“Yes, mistress," he answered unwillingly. “I
your dragoman one year in Cairo. What you want
here, mistress ? "
“You know that I know,” she went on, “ that you
are a Turk and a Mohammedan, and not an
Egyptian at all."
“ Yes, mistress, you know that,” he muttered.
“ And you also know," she continued, “ that if I
give you away to the authorities you will be sent
at once to a very uncomfortable internment camp,
where you won't even have an opportunity to wash
more than once a day, where you will have to herd
with all sorts of people, who will make fun of your
colour and your religion —"
“Don't, mistress!” he shouted suddenly. “ You
will not tell. I think you will not tell!”
He was sidling a little towards her. Again one
of those curious changes seemed to have transformed
him from a dumb, passive creature into a savage.
There was menace in his eyes. She waved him back
without moving.
“ I have come to make a bargain with you, Has-
san,” she said, “ just a few words, that is all. Not
quite so near, please.”
He paused. There was a moment's silence. His
face was within a foot of hers, lowering, black,
bestial. Her eyes met his without a tremor. Her
full, sweet lips only curved into a faintly con-
temptuous line.
“ You cannot frighten me, Hassan," she declared.
“No man has ever done that. And outside I have
a chauffeur with muscles of iron, who waits for me.


THE PAWNS COUNT 27
Be reasonable. Listen. There are secrets con-
nected with your restaurant.”
“I know nothing,” he began at once; “ nothing,
mistress — nothing!”
“Quite naturally," she continued. “I only need
one piece of information. A man disappeared there
this morning. I just have to find him. That's
all there is about it. At half-past one he was in-
veigled into the musicians' room and by some means
or other rendered unconscious. At three o'clock he
had been removed. I want to know what became
of him. You help me and the whole world can
believe you to be an Egyptian for the rest of their
lives. If you can't help me it is rather unfortunate
for you, because I shall tell the police at once
who and what you are. Don't waste time, Has-
san.”
He stood thinking, rubbing his hands and bowing
before her, yet, as she knew very well, with murder
in his heart. Once she saw his long fingers raised a
little.
6 Quite useless, Hassan,” she warned him. “They
hang you in England, you know, for any little trifle
such as you are thinking of. Be sensible, and I
may even leave a few pound notes behind me.”
“ Mistress should ask Joseph,” he muttered. “I
know nothing."
“Oh, mistress is going to ask Joseph all right,"
she assured him, “but I want a little information
from you, too. You've got to earn your freedom,
you know, Hassan. Come, what do they do with
the people who disappear from the restaurant? "


28
THE PAWNS COUNT
“Not understand," was the almost piteous re-
ply.
Pamela sighed. She had again the air of one
being patient with a child.
“ See here, Hassan,” she went on, “a few days
ago I went over that restaurant from top to bottom
with the manager. There is the musicians' room,
isn't there, just over the entrance hall? I suppose
those little glass places in the floor are movable, and
then one can hear every word that is spoken below.
I am right so far, am I not?”
Hassan answered nothing. His breathing, how-
ever, had become a little deeper.
“ An unsuspecting person, passing from the toilet
rooms upstairs, could easily be induced to enter. I
think that there must be another exit from that
room. Yes ? "
«« Yes !” Hassan faltered.
“ To where?”
“ The wine cellars."
“ And from there?”
Hassan was suddenly voluble. Truth unlocked
his tongue.
“Not know, mistress — not know another thing.
No one enters wine-cellar but three men. One of
those not know. If I guess — I, Hassan — I look at
little chapel left standing in waste place. Perhaps
I wonder sometimes, but I not know.”
Pamela drew three notes from her gold purse,
smoothed them out and handed them over.
“ Three pounds, Hassan, silence, and good day!
You'll live longer if you open your windows now and


THE PAWNS COUNT
29
then, and get a little fresh air, instead of praying
yourself hoarse."
Again the black figure swayed perilously towards
her. She affected not to notice, not to notice the
hand which seemed for a moment as though it would
snatch the door handle from her grasp. She passed
out pleasantly and without haste. The last sound
she heard was a groan.
“Done your bit o' business, eh?” the landlady
asked curiously.
Pamela nodded assent.
“Rather an odd sort of lodger for you, isn't he ? "
“ Not so odd as his visitors,” the woman retorted,
with an evil sneer.
Pamela passed into the narrow street and drew a
long sigh of relief. Then she entered her car and
gave the chauffeur an address from the slip of paper
which she carried in her hand. When they stopped
outside the little block of flats he prepared to follow
her.
“ Tough neighbourhood this, madam,” he said.
“ Maybe, George," she replied, waving him back,
“ but you've got to stay down here. If the man I
am going to see thought I was frightened of him I
wouldn't have a chance. If I am not down in half
an hour you can try number 18C.”
The chauffeur resumed his place on the driving-
seat of the car. Pamela, heartily disliking her sur-
roundings, was escorted by a shabby porter to a
shabbier lift.
“You'll find Mr. Joseph in,” the lift boy assured
her with a grin.


30
THE PAWNS COUNT
Pamela found the number at the end of an un-
swept stone passage. At her third summons the
door was cautiously opened by a large, repulsive-
looking woman, with a mass of peroxidised hair.
She stared at her visitor first in amazement, then in
rapidly gathering resentment.
“Mr. Joseph is at home,” she admitted trucu-
lently, in response to Pamela's inquiry. “What
might you be wanting with him?"
“ If you will be so good as to let me in I will
explain to Mr. Joseph,” Pamela replied.
The woman seemed on the point of slamming the
door. Suddenly there was a voice from behind her
shoulder. Joseph appeared — not the smiling, joy-
ous Joseph of Henry's but a sullen-looking negro,
dressed in shirt and trousers only, with a heavy
under-lip and frowning forehead.
“Let the lady pass and get into the kitchen,
Nora,” he ordered. “ Come this way, mam.”
Pamela followed her guide into a parlour, redolent
of stale cigar smoke, with oilcloth on the floor and
varnished walls, an abode even more horrible than
Hassan's lair. Joseph closed the door carefully
behind him, and made no apology for his dishabille.
He simply faced Pamela.
“Say, what is it you want with me?” he demanded
truculently.
“A trifle," she answered. “The key of the
chapel in the little plot of waste ground next
Henry's.”
She meant him to be staggered, and he was. He
reeled back for a moment.


THE PAWNS COUNT
31
“What the hell are you talking about?” he
gasped.
“Facts,” Pamela replied. “Do you want to save
yourself, Joseph? You can do it if you choose.”
He folded his arms and stood in front of the closed
door. Without a collar, his neck bulged unpleas-
antly behind. There was nothing whatever left of
the suave and genial chef d'orchestra.
“ Save myself from what, eh? Just let me get
wise about it.”
Pamela's eyebrows were daintily elevated.
“ Dear me !” she murmured. “I thought you
were more intelligent. Listen. You know where
we met last? Let me remind you. You were play-
ing in the Winter Garden at Berlin, and the gentle-
man whom I was with, an attaché at the American
Embassy, spoke to you. He told me a good deal
about your past life, Joseph, and your present one.
You are in the pay of the Secret Service of Germany.
Am I to go to Scotland Yard and tell them
so ? »
He looked at her wickedly.
“ You'd have to get out of here first."
“ Don't be silly,” she advised him contemptuously.
“ Remember you're talking to an American woman
and don't waste your breath. You can be in the
Secret Service of any country you like, without in-
terference from me. On the other hand, there's
just one thing I want from you.”
“ What is it? I haven't got any key.”
“I want to discover exactly what has become of
Captain Graham,” she declared.


32
THE PAWNS COUNT
“What, the guy that missed his lunch to-day?”
he growled.
“I see you know all about it,” she continued
equably.
“ So he's your spark, is he?” Joseph observed
slowly, his eyes blinking as he leaned a little for-
ward.
“ On the contrary,” Pamela replied, “I have
never met him. However, that's beside the point.
Do I have the key of that chapel?”
“ You do not.”
“Have you got it?”
“Right here,” Joseph assented, dangling it before
her eyes.
“ I think it's a fair bargain I'm offering you,” she
reminded him. “ You lose the key and keep your
place. You only have to keep your mouth shut and
nothing happens.”
“ Nothing doing,” the negro declared shortly.
“Keys as important as this ain't lost. If I part
with it, I get the chuck, and I probably get into the
same mess as the others. If I keep it —”
“ If you keep it,” Pamela interrupted, “ you will
probably stand with your back to the light in the
Tower within the next few days. They've left off
being lenient with spies over here."
He looked at her, and there were things in his eves
which few women in the world could have seen with-
out terror. Pamela's lips only came a little closer
together. She pressed the inside of the ring upon
her third finger, and a ray of green fire seemed to
shoot forward.


THE PAWNS COUNT
33
“I guess I'm up against it,” he growled, taking a
step forward. “I'll have something of what's
coming to me, if I swing for it.”
His arm was suddenly around her, his face
hideously close. He gave a little snarl as he felt the
pinprick through his shirt sleeve. Then he went
spinning round and round with his hand to his head.
“What in God's name ! ” he spluttered. “What
in hell —!”
He reeled against the horsehair easy-chair and
slipped on to the floor. Pamela calmly closed her
ring, stooped over him, withdrew the key from his
pocket, crossed the room and the dingy little hall
with swift footsteps, and, without waiting for the
lift, fled down the stone steps. Before she reached
the bottom, she heard the shrill ringing of the lift
bell, the angry shouting of the woman. Pamela,
however, strolled quietly out and took her place in
the car.
“ Back to the hotel, George," she directed the
chauffeur. “Don't stop if they call to you from the
flats."
The young man sprang up to his seat and the car
glided off. Pamela leaned forward and looked at
herself in the mirror. There was a shade more
colour in her face, perhaps, than usual, but her low
waves of chestnut hair were unruffled. She used
her powder puff with attentive skill and leaned back.
“ That's the disagreeable part of it over, any-
way,” she sighed to herself contentedly.


CHAPTER IV
The last of the supper-guests had left Henry's
Restaurant, the commissionaire's whistle was silent.
The light laughter and frivolous adieux of the
departing guests seemed to have melted away into a
world somewhere beyond the pale of the unseasonable
fog. The little strip of waste ground adjoining was
wrapped in gloom and silence. The exterior of the
bare and deserted chapel, long since unconsecrate,
was dull and lifeless. Inside, however, began the
march of strange things. First of all, the pinprick
of light of a tiny electric torch seemed as though it
had risen from the floor, and Hassan, pushing back
a trap-door, stepped into the bare, dusty conventicle.
He listened for a moment, then made a tour of the
windows, touched a spring in the wall, and drew
down long, thick blinds. Afterwards he passed be-
tween the row of dilapidated benches and paused at
the entrance door. He stooped down, examined the
keyless lock, shook it gently, gazed upwards and
downwards as though in vain search of bolts that
were never there. His white teeth gleamed for a
moment in the darkness. He turned away with a
little shiver.
“ Not my fault,” he muttered to himself. “Not
my fault."
He listened for a moment intently, as though for


THE PAWNS COUNT
35
footsteps outside. The disturbance, however, came
from the other end of the building. There was a
sharp knocking from the trap-door by which he had
ascended. He touched an electric knob. The place
was dimly yet sufficiently illuminated. He hastened
towards the further end of the place and pulled up
the trap-door. A melancholy-looking little proces-
sion slowly emerged. First of all came Joseph, step-
ping backwards, supporting the head and shoulders
of Graham, still bound and gagged. After him
came a dark, swarthy-faced wine waiter, who sup-
ported Graham's feet. Behind followed Fischer,
carrying his silk hat and cane in his hand. He
paused for a moment as he stepped on the floor of
the chapel, and brushed the dust from his trousers.
“ You can take out the gag now," he ordered the
two men. “ There isn't much shout in him.”
They laid him upon a couch, and Joseph obeyed
the order. Graham's head swung helplessly on one
side. His eyes opened, however, and he struggled
for consciousness. His lips twitched for a moment,
In these long hours he had almost forgotten the habit
of speech. The words, when they came, sounded
strange to him,
“What -- where am I? What do you want with
me? »
Fischer laid his hat and stick upon a table, on
which also stood a telephone instrument.
“ The formula, my young friend,” he replied, " for
that wonderful explosive of which you spoke in the
lobby.”
A sudden accession of nervous strength brought


36
THE PAWNS COUNT
something almost like passion into the young man's
reply, although to himself there still seemed some
unreality in the words which might have come from
the walls or the roof — surely not from his lips.
“ I'll see you damned first!”
Fischer smiled. The man was good-looking, in
his way, but this was a pale and ugly smile.
“My request was merely a matter of courtesy,"
he remarked." The difficulty of searching you is
not formidable. It would have been undertaken
long ago but for the fact that the restaurant has
been crowded and gags sometimes slip. Besides,
there was no hurry. Observe!”
He leaned over Graham, who for the first time
struggled furiously but ineffectually with his bonds.
His fingers all the time were straining towards the
inside pocket of his coat. Fischer nodded under-
standingly.
“ Allow me to anticipate you,” he said.
With a quick thrust he drew a little handful of
papers from the pocket of his captive. One by one
he glanced them through and flung them on to the
floor. As he came towards the end of his search,
however, his expression of confident complacency
vanished. His lips shrivelled up a little, his eyes
narrowed. The last folded sheet of paper — a little
perfumed note from Peggy, thanking Sandy for his
beautiful roses — he crumpled fiercely into a little
ball. He opened his lips to speak, then he paused.
A new light broke in upon him. The fury had
passed from Sandy Graham's face. In its stead
there was an expression of blank astonishment.


THE PAWNS COUNT
“ Where is the formula?” Fischer asked fiercely.
There was no reply. Sandy Graham was still
staring at the little pile of papers upon the floor.
Fischer made a brief examination of the other pock-
ets. Then he stepped back. His voice shook, his
face was dark and malevolent.
“ Joseph, Hassan, Jules — listen to me!” he or-
dered. “ Did any one else enter the musicians' room
whilst he was lying in the alcove? "
“ Impossible!” Jules declared.
“ The door was locked,” Hassan murmured.
“Stop!” Joseph exclaimed.
Fischer wheeled round upon him.
“ Well?" he exclaimed. “Get on, then. Who?"
Joseph moistened his lips. He was still feeling
sore and dizzy, but he began to see his way.
“ You noticed, perhaps," he said, “ the American
girl — the beautiful young lady with this guy's
friends? She was waiting with the others for Cap-
tain Graham to come down. I saw her go up the
stairs. I saw her come down again, three minutes
later.”
“Miss Van Teyl?” Fischer exclaimed, with a
frown. “You're mad, Joseph!”
The negro laughed grimly.
“ Am I!” he retorted. “I tell you this, Master
Fischer. She was in Berlin where I was, and she
was at the Embassy every day. She was asked to
leave there. They put her over the frontier into
Holland. I knew her when she came into the res-
taurant. She's no society young lady, she ain't!
Bet you she was on to the goods.”


38
THE PAWNS COUNT
Fischer hesitated for a moment. The thoughts
were chasing one another through his brain. Then
he took up the receiver from the telephone instrument
which stood upon the table.
“ 1560 Mayfair,” he asked in a low tone.
They all stood listening, grouped around Gra-
ham's writhing figure.
“Hullo! Is that Claridge's Hotel?” Fischer
went on. “I am speaking from Ciro's. Put me
through, if you please, to Miss Van Teyl's aport-
ments. . . What? Repeat that, will you? ...
Thank you.”
Fischer laid down the receiver. He turned to-
wards the others. He was breathing a little quickly,
and his eyes glittered behind his gold-rimmed spec-
tacles.
“Miss Van Teyl,” he announced, “has left for
Tilbury. She is going out on the Lapland this
morning. My God, she's got the formula ! ”
There was a moment's silence. Joseph was stand-
ing by with a wicked look on his face.
“I saw her slip away," he muttered, “ and I
watched her come down again. There was just
time.”
Fischer turned suddenly to where Graham was
lying. He drew a sheet of writing paper from the
rack upon the table, and a pencil from his pocket.
There was an evil and concentrated significance in
his tone.
“ That formula," he said, “ can be written again.
I think you had better write it.”


THE PAWNS COUNT
39
“ I'll see you damned first!” was the weak but
prompt reply.
Fischer bent a little lower over the prostrate
figure. “Look here,” he went on, “ we don't run
risks like this for nothing. You're better dead than
alive, so far as we are concerned, anyway. We'd
planned to take the formula from you, and you can
guess the rest. There are cellars underneath here
into which no one ever goes who matters. Now
here's a chance of life for you. Write down that
formula — truthfully, mind -- and we'll discuss the
matter of taking your parole.”
“ See you damned first!” Graham repeated, his
voice a little more tremulous but still convincing.
Fischer stood upright and turned to Jules.
“ Get a bottle of brandy and a glass,” he ordered.
The man pushed open the trap-door and disap-
peared. He came back again in a few moments,
with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.
Fischer poured out some of the cordial and drew a
small table up to Graham's side.
“ There,” he said, loosening the cord around his
left wrist, “ drink that, and think it over. We shall
be gone for about ten minutes. If you change your
mind before, ring that little hand-bell. If you have
not changed your mind when we return, it will be
the cellars."
“ Beasts !” Graham muttered.
Fischer shrugged his shoulders. For a moment
he had straightened himself. His face had softened,
but it was in tune with his thoughts.


40
THE PAWNS COUNT
"I would twist the necks of a million fools like
you," he said, “ for the sake of "
He paused, leaving his sentence uncompleted, and
beckoned to the other men. They followed him
through the trap-door and down into the cellars
below. The place was once more silent. Graham
rolled from side to side, drew a long breath, and
tugged vainly at his bonds. The effort overtaxed
his strength. He seemed to feel the darkness closing
in upon him, the rushing of the sea in his ears. . .


42
THE PAWNS COUNT
Then he turned around, lifted the glass of brandy
from the table, smelt it approvingly, and tasted it.
“Excellent!” he pronounced. “The 1840.
Allow me!”
He refilled the glass and handed it to Sandy, who
gulped down the contents. The effect was almost
instantaneous. In less than a minute he had
staggered to his feet.
“ Feel strong enough to walk about fifty yards ? "
Lutchester inquired.
“I'd walk to hell to get out of this place !” was
the prompt reply.
Lutchester took his arm, and they passed down
the dusty aisle between the worm-eaten and decaying
benches and through the outside door, which Lut-
chester closed and locked behind them. The rush
of cold air was like new life to Graham.
“ I can walk all right now,” he muttered. “My
God, we'll give these fellows hell for this !”
They made their very difficult way across a plot
of ground from which a row of dilapidated cottages
had been razed to the ground. The fog still hung
around them and seemed to bring with it a curious
silence, although the dying traffic from one of the
main thoroughfares reached them in muffled notes.
Lutchester climbed to the top of a pile of rubbish
and then, turning around, held out his hand.
“ Up here,” he directed.
Graham struggled up until he stood by his com-
panion's side. The latter stood quite still, listening
for a moment. Then he climbed a little higher and
swung around, holding out his hand once more.


THE PAWNS COUNT
43
“ I'm on top of the wall,” he said. “ Come
on.”
Graham's knees were shaking, but with Lut-
chester's help he staggered up and reached his side.
On the pavement below a man in chauffeur's livery
was standing, holding out his hands, and by the
side of the curbstone a closed car was waiting.
Somehow or other the two reached the pavement.
Lutchester almost pushed his companion into the
limousine and stepped in after him. The chauffeur
sprang to his seat and the car glided off. Graham
just realised that there was a woman by his side
whose face was vaguely familiar. Then the waves
broke in upon his ears once more.
“ I was right, then, it seems,” Pamela observed
approvingly. “ You were just the man for this
little affair.”
Lutchester sighed.
“Unfortunately,” he confessed, “ a messenger boy
would have been as effective. I stumbled over to the
chapel -— rubber shoes, you observe," he remarked,
pointing downwards " and soon discovered that
blinds had been let down all round and that there
were people inside. There was just a faint chink in
one, and I caught a glimpse of several men, your
friend Oscar amongst them. Having," he went on,
“ an immense regard for my personal safety, I was
hesitating what means to adopt when the lights were
lowered, and it seemed to me that the men were
disappearing.”
“Do go on,” Pamela murmured. “This is most
exciting.”


44
THE PAWNS COUNT
“In a sense it was disappointing,” Lutchester
complained. “I had pictured for myself a dramatic
entrance . . . a quiet turning of the key, a soft
approach — owing to my shoes,” he reminded her —
“a cough, perhaps, or a breath . .. discovery,
me with a revolver in my hand pointed to the arch-
villain - If you stir you're a dead man!' ...
Natural collapse of the villain. With my left hand
I slash the bonds which hold Graham, with my right
I cover the miscreants. One of them, perhaps,
might creep behind me, and I hesitate. If I move
my revolver the other two will get the drop on me —
I think that is the correct expression? A wonderful
moment, that, Miss Van Teyl!”
“ But it didn't happen,” she protested.
“Ah! I forgot that,” he acknowledged. “ Still,
I was prepared. I had the revolver all right. But
as you say, it didn't happen. I made my way to the
chapel door, let myself in, found our friend lying in
a half-comatose state upon one of the blue plush
Henry sofas, in the shadow of a horrible deal pulpit.
I gathered that he had been left there to reflect upon
his sins. There was a bottle of remarkably fine
brandy within reach, which I tested, and with which
I dosed our friend here. I then cut away his bonds,
arm in arm we walked down the aisle, I locked up
the place, threw the key away, kicked my shins half-
a-dozen times crossing that disgusting little plot of
land, climbed boldly to the top of the wall, and
behold!”
Pamela smiled upon him in congratulatory
fashion.


THE PAWNS COUNT
45
“ On the whole,” she said, “I am quite glad that I
telephoned to you.”
“You showed a sound discretion,” he admitted.
“ If he had not been lame," she confessed, “I
should have sent to Captain Holderness."
“ That would have been a great mistake,” Lut-
chester assured her. “Holderness is a good fellow
but devoid of imagination. He is great on consti-
tuted authority. He would have probably marched
up with a squad of heavy-footed policemen — and
found nothing."
“ Yet I must confess,” Pamela persisted, with a
frankness unaccountable even to herself, “ that if I
could have thought of any one else I should never
have telephoned to you.”
“ And why not?"
“Because I should not have classified you as being
of the adventurous type,” she declared.
Lutchester looked injured.
“ After all,” he protested, “ that is not my fault.
That is due to your singular lack of perception.
However, I am able to return the compliment. I,
for my part, should have thought that you were
more interested in the fashions than in paying exceed-
ingly rash visits to degenerate orientals and negroes.”
“ Perhaps some day," she remarked, “we may
understand one another better."
He met her gaze with a certain seriousness.
“ I hope that we may," he said.
For some reason they were both silent for a
moment. Her tone had changed a little when she
spoke again.


THE PAWNS COUNT
“You are sure,” she asked, “ that you do not mind
my leaving the rest of this affair in your hands?
There are reasons, which I cannot tell you of just
now, which make me anxious not to appear in it
at all.”
“I accept the charge as a privilege," he assented.
“We are within a few yards of my rooms now. I
promise you that I will look after Captain Graham
and advise him as to the proper course for him to
pursue."
The car came to a standstill.
“ This then,” she said, holding out her hand,“ will
be good-by for the present.”
He held her fingers for a moment without reply.
Quite suddenly she decided that she liked him. Then
he lifted Graham, who was half asleep, half uncon-
scious, to his feet, and assisted him from the car.
“Where shall I tell the man to go to?” he in-
quired.
“ He knows,” she answered with sudden tacitur-
nity.
“ Wherever it may be, then," he replied, “bon
voyage ! ”


CHAPTER VI
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."


THE PAWNS COUNT
49
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 mur-
mured 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 sud-
denly 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 hap-
pened 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


50
THE PAWNS COUNT
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 re-
minded 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.


THE PAWNS COUNT
51
“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 pocket-
book 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 tele-
phone.”
“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 pro-
nounced. “ 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


52
THE PAWNS COUNT
protested. “He is an enemy – a German — shel-
tering himself under his American naturalization.
Surely we're going for him?"
“He's a wrong ’un, of course," Lutchester ad-
mitted, “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 maître
d'hôtel, 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


THE PAWNS COUNT
53
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 im-
perative.
“ 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 impres-
sion 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


54
THE PAWNS COUNT
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 cal-
culations 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 Eng-
land, 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 re-
peat myself and ask you once more — what the hell
has all this got to do with you?”
“ Just this much," Lutchester replied, " that I in-
sist 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


THE PAWNS COUNT
55
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 min-
ute 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 unaccount-
ably 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 sup-
pose, that my advice is good? ”
“ Yes, I am satisfied,” Graham answered nery-
ously. “You know that — that I'm under ar-
rest? "
Lutchester nodded.
“Well, you're not asking for my sympathy, I sup-
pose?” he observed drily.


THE PAWNS COUNT
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 North-
umberland 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 final-
ity.
“ 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 un-
der the closest surveillance, but we wish nothing dis-
turbed there at the moment until we have discovered
the future plans of Mr. Oscar Fischer.”


THE PAWNS COUNT
57
“ The big German-American,” Graham muttered.
“He's the man you ought to get hold of.”
“ Some day I hope that we may," Lutchester de-
clared. “ For the moment, however, we want him
undisturbed. You would scarcely believe it, per-
haps, if I told you that the theft of your formulas
is only a slight thing compared to the bigger busi-
ness 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 night-
mare," 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 bed-
room 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.”


58
THE PAWNS COUNT
6 Yes ? "
“Don't bother your head about me, and don't ask
any more questions."


60
THE PAWNS COUNT
on my last night in London," he remarked. “It left
me two hours to get down to Tilbury, but it don't
take me long to start for anywhere when I once
make up my mind. That's the American of us, I
suppose. Besides, I never need much in the way
of luggage. I keep clothes over on the other side
and clothes in New York, and a grip always ready
packed for a journey."
“ You're so typical,” she murmured, smiling.
“I don't know about that,” he replied. “My
business makes it necessary for me to be always on
the go. Have you heard from your brother lately? "
Pamela shook her head.
“ Jimmy is the most terrible correspondent," she
complained. “I don't think I've had any mail from
him for two months.”
“ You didn't know that he and I were sharing
rooms together, then, in the Plaza Hotel, I sup-
pose?”
Pamela turned her head a little and gazed at her
companion in genuine surprise.
“ Sharing rooms in the Plaza Hotel ? ” she re-
peated. ... “You and Jimmy?”
“I guess that's so," Mr. Fischer assented. “We
were doing business together one day, and the sub-
ject cropped up somehow or other. Your brother
was thinking of making a move, and I'd just been
shown these rooms, which were a trifle on the large
side for me. I made him an offer and he jumped
at it.”
“I hope you're not leading James into extrava-
gant ways” she remarked anxiously. “I loved his


THE PAWNS COUNT
61
little apartment in Forty-Second Street and it was
so inexpensive."
“ Your brother's share of these rooms isn't any-
thing more than he can afford,” Mr. Fischer assured
her. “ That I can promise you. I guess his firm is
doing well just now. If they've many more clients
like me they are.”
“ It is very nice of you to put business in his
way,” Pamela said thoughtfully. “I wonder why
you do it, Mr. Fischer?”
“ Why shouldn't I?”
“ Well,” Pamela went on, her eyes travelling out
seaward for a moment, “ you seem to be one of those
sort of men, Mr. Fischer, who never do anything
without an object."
,“ Some powers of observation," he admitted
blithely.
“You have an object in being kind to Jimmy,
then? "
Mr. Fischer produced a cigar case and selected a
cheroot.
“ Mind my smoking?"
“Not in the least. The only time I mind things
is when people don't answer my questions."
“I was only kind of hesitating,” Mr. Fischer went
on, leaning back once more in his chair. “ You
want the truth, don't you?”
“I never think anything else is worth while."
“ In the first place, then,” her companion began,
“ your brother belongs to what I suppose is known
as the exclusive set in New York. I am a Westerner
with few friends there. Through him I have ob-


62
THE PAWNS COUNT
tained introductions to several people whom it was
interesting to me, from a business point of view, to
know.”
“I see,” Pamela murmured. “You are at least
frank, Mr. Fischer.”
“I am going to be more frank still,” he promised
her. “Then another reason, of course, was because
I liked him, and a third, which I am not sure wasn't
the chief of all, because he was your brother."
Pamela laughed gaily.
“ Is that necessary? "
“ Necessary or not, it's the truth,” he assured her.
“I am a man of quick impressions and lasting
ones.”
“But we've never met except on a steamer,"
Pamela reminded him.
“I know it's the fashion,” Mr. Fischer said, “ to
turn up one's nose at steamer acquaintances. It
isn't like that with me. You see, I don't have as
much opportunity of meeting folk as some others,
perhaps. The most interesting people I've known
socially I've met on steamers. I sat at your table,
side by side with you, Miss Van Teyl, for seven days
a few months ago. I guess I'll remember those
seven days as long as I live.”
Pamela turned her head and looked at him. The
faintly derisive smile died away from her lips. The
man was in earnest. A certain curiosity stole into
her eyes as the seconds passed. She studied his
hard, strong face, with its great jaw and prominent
forehead; the mouth, a little too full, and belying
the rest of his physiognomy, yet with its own pecul-


THE PAWNS COUNT
63
iar strength. He had taken off his spectacles, and
it seemed to her that the cold, flinty light of his eyes
had caught for a moment some touch of the softer
blue of the sea or the sky. Seated, he lost some
of the awkwardness of his too great and ill-carried
height. It seemed to her that he was at least a
person to be reckoned with, either in friendship or
enmity.
“ Are you an American born, Mr. Fischer,” she
asked him.
He shook his head.
. “I was born at Offenbach,” he told her, “ near
Frankfurt. My father brought me out to America
when I was eleven years old.”
“ You must find the present condition of things a
little trying for you,” she observed.
Oscar Fischer put on his glasses again. He did
not answer for several moments.
“ That opens up a subject, Miss Van Teyl,” he
said, " which some day I should like to discuss with
you.”
“ Why not now?” she invited.“ I feel much more
inclined for conversation than reading.”
« Tell me, then, to begin with,” he asked thought-
fully, “ on which side are your sympathies?”
“I try to do my duty as an American citizen,"
she replied promptly, “ and that is to have no sym-
pathies. Our dear country has set the world an.
example of what neutrality should be. I think it
is the duty of us Americans to try and bring our-
selves into exactly the same line of feeling.”
He changed his position a little uneasily. His


64
THE PAWNS COUNT
attitude became less of a sprawl. His eyes were
fixed upon her face.
“I fear,” he said, " that we are going to begin by
a disagreement. I do not consider that America
has realised in the least the duties of a neutral
nation."
“ You must explain that at once, if you please,
before we go any further," Pamela insisted.
“Is this neutrality?” Fischer demanded, his
rather harsh voice almost raucous now with a touch
of real feeling. “ America ships daily millions of
dollars' worth of those things that make war pos-
sible, to France, to Italy, above all to England.
She keeps them supplied with ammunition, clothing,
scientific instruments, food — a dozen things which
make war easier. To Germany she sends nothing.
Is that neutrality? ”
“But America is perfectly willing to deal in the
same way with Germany," Pamela pointed out.
“ German agents can come and place their orders
and take away whatever they want. The market
is as much open to her as to the Allies.”
Fischer was sitting bolt upright in his chair now.
There was a little spot of colour in his cheeks and
his eyes flashed behind his spectacles. He struck
the side of the chair. He was very angry.
“ That is Jesuitical,” he declared. “It is per-
fectly well-known that Germany is not in a position
to fetch munitions from America. Therefore, I say
that there is no neutrality in supplying one side in
the war with goods which the other is unable to
procure.”


THE PAWNS COUNT
65
“ Then you place upon America the onus of Ger-
many's naval inferiority,” Pamela remarked drily.
“ Germany's maritime inferiority does not exist,”
Mr. Fischer protested. “When the moment arrives
that the High Seas fleet comes out for action the
world will know the truth."
“ Then hadn't it better come,” Pamela suggested,
“ and clear the ocean for your commerce?”
“ That isn't the point,” Fischer insisted. “We
have wandered from the main issue. I say that
America abandons its neutrality when it helps the
Allies to continue the war.”
“I don't think you will find,” Pamela replied,
" that international law prevents any neutral coun-
try from supplying either combatant with munitions.
If one country can fetch the things and the other
can't, that is the misfortune of the country that
can't. For one moment look at the matter from
England's point of view. She has built up a mighty
navy to keep the seas clear for exactly this purpose
- to continue her commerce from abroad. Ger-
many instead has built up a mighty army, with
which she has overrun Europe. Germany has had
the advantage from her army. Why shouldn't Eng-
land have the advantage from her navy? ”
“Let me ask you the question you asked me a
few minutes ago," her companion begged. “Were
you born in America — or England ? "
“I was born in America,” Pamela told him; “ so
were my parents and my grandparents. I claim
to be American to the backbone. I claim even to
treat any sympathies I might have in this affair as


66
THE PAWNS COUNT
prejudices, and not even to allow them a single cor-
ner in my brain.”
Mr. Fischer sat quite still for several moments.
He was struggling very hard to keep his temper.
In the end he succeeded.
“We will not, then, pursue the subject of Amer-
ica's neutrality," he said, “because it is obvious
that we disagree fundamentally. But tell me this,
now, as an American and a patriot. Which do you
think would be better for America - That Germany
and Austria won this war, or the Allies ? "
“Upon that question I have not altogether made
up my mind,” Pamela confessed.
“ Then there is room there for a discussion,” Mr.
Fischer pointed out eagerly. “I should like to put
my views before you on this matter."
“ And I should love to hear them,” Pamela re-
plied, “but I feel just now as though we had talked
enough politics. Do you know that I came up on
deck in a state of great agitation?"
“ Submarine alarms from the stewardess ? " Mr.
Fischer suggested.
“I am not afraid of submarines, but I have a most
profound dislike for thieves,” Pamela declared.
“ You have not had anything stolen? ” he asked
quickly.
“I have not,” Pamela replied, “but the only
reason seems to be that I have nothing worth steal-
ing. When I got back from luncheon this afternoon.
I found that my stateroom had been systematically
searched.”
She turned her head a little lazily and looked at


THE PAWNS COUNT 67
her neighbour. His expression was entirely sym-
pathetic.
“ Your jewellery?”
“ Deposited with the purser.”
“I congratulate you,” he said.
“ Nothing has been stolen,” she observed, “but
one hates the feeling of insecurity, all the same.
Both my steward and stewardess are old friends.
It must have been a very clever person who found
his way into my room.”
“A very clever person,” Mr. Fischer objected,
“ would have known that you had deposited your
jewels with the purser.”
“If it was my jewels of which they were in
search,” Pamela murmured. “ By the bye, do you
remember all that fuss about the disappearance of a
young soldier that morning at Henry's? ”
Fischer nodded.
“I heard something about it,” he confessed.
“ They were talking about it at dinner-time.”
“I had an idea that you might be interested,"
Pamela went on. “He was rather a foolish young
man. He came into the restaurant telling every one
at the top of his voice that he had made a great
discovery! Even in London, which is, I should
think, the most prosaic city in the world, there must
be people who are on the lookout to pick up war
secrets.”
“Even in London, as you remark,” Fischer as-
sented.
“You didn't hear the end of the affair, I sup-
pose? ” she asked him.


68
THE PAWNS COUNT
The steward had arrived with afternoon tea.
Fischer threw into the sea the cigar which he had
been smoking.
“I do not think,” he said, " that the end has been
reached yet."
Pamela sighed.
“ Les oreilles ennemies !” she quoted. “I suppose
one has to be careful everywhere."


CHAPTER VIII
It was one evening towards the end of the voyage,
and about an hour after dinner. A huge form
loomed out of the darkness, continuing its steady
promenade along the unlit portion of the deck.
Pamela, moved by some caprice, abandoned her cau-
tion of the last few days and called out.
“ Mr. Fischer!”
He stopped short. The sparks flew from the red
end of his cigar, which he tossed into the sea. He
hastened towards her.
“ Miss Van Teyl?” he replied, a little hesitatingly.
“How clever of you to know my voice!” she
observed. “I am in the humour to talk. Will you
sit down, please ? "
Mr. Fischer humbly drew a chair to her side.
“I had an idea,” he said, “ that you had been
avoiding me the last two or three days.”
“ I have,” she admitted.
“Have I offended you, then?”
“ Scarcely that,” she replied, “ only, you see, it
seemed waste of time to talk to you with the foils
on, and a little dangerous, perhaps, to talk to you
with them off.”
His face reflected his admiration.
“ Miss Van Teyl,” he declared, “ you are quite a
wonderful person. I have never believed very much


70
THE PAWNS COUNT
in women before. Perhaps that is the reason why
I have never married.”
“ Dear me, are you a woman-hater?” she asked.
He looked at her steadfastly.
“I have made use of women as playthings,” he
confessed. “ Until I met you I never thought of
them as companions, as partners.”
She laughed at him through the darkness, and at
the sound of her laugh his eyes glowed.
“Really, I am very much flattered,” she said.
“ You give me credit for intelligence, then?”
“I give you credit for every gift a woman should
have,” he answered enthusiastically. “I recognise
in you the woman I have sometimes dreamed of."
Again she laughed.
“ Don't tell me, Mr. Fischer," she protested," that
ever in your practical life you have spent a single
moment in dreams? ”
“I have spent many," he assured her, “but they
have all been since I knew you."
Pamela sighed.
“I have never been through a voyage,” she ob-
served, “without a love affair. Still, I never sus-
pected you, Mr. Fischer.”
“ You suspected me, perhaps, of other things."
She nodded.
“ I am full of suspicions about you,” she admitted.
“I am not going to tell you what they are, of
course.”
“ There is one thing of which I am guilty," he
confessed. “I should like to tell you about it right
now.”


THE PAWNS COUNT 71
“ Could I guess it?"
“ You're clever enough.”
“ You like me, don't you, Mr. Fischer?”
“ Beter than any woman in the world,” he an-
swered promptly. “ And my confession is — well,
just that. Will you marry me?”
Pamela shook her head.
“Quite early in life,” she confided, “I made up my
mind that I would never give a definite answer to any
one who proposed to me on a steamer. I suppose it's
the wind, or is it the stars, or the silence, or what?
I have known the sanest of men, even like you, Mr.
Fischer, become quite maudlin.”
“I am brimful of common sense at the present
moment,” he declared earnestly. “ You and I could
do great things together, if only I could get you to
look at one certain matter from my point of view;
to see it as I see it.”
“ A political matter?” she inquired naïvely.
“I want to try and persuade you,” he confessed,
" that America has everything in the world to gain
from Germany's success, and everything to lose if
the Allies should triumph in this war and Great
Britain should continue her tyranny of the
seas."
“ It's an extraordinarily interesting subject,”
Pamela admitted.
“ It is almost as absorbing,” he declared, “ as the
other matter which just now lies even nearer to my
heart."
She withdrew her fingers from his sudden clutch.
“ Mr. Fischer,” she told him, “ what I said just


72
THE PAWNS COUNT
now was quite final. I will not be made love to on a
steamer.”
“When we land,” he continued eagerly, “ you will
be coming to see your brother, won't you?”
She nodded.
“ Of course! I am coming to the Plaza Hotel.
That, I suppose, is good news for you, Mr. Fischer.”
“Of course it is,” he answered, “but why do you
say so?”
“ It will give you so many opportunities,” she
murmured.
“ Of seeing you?”
She shook her head.
“Of searching my belongings."
There was a moment's silence. She heard his
quick breath through the darkness. His voice as-
sumed its harsher tone.
“You believe that it was I who searched your
stateroom?"
“I am sure that it was you, or some one acting for
you."
“ What is it, then, of which I am in search? ” he
demanded.
6 Captain Graham's formula," she replied. “I
think you want that a good deal more than you
want me."
“ You have it then?” he asked fiercely.
She sighed.
6. You jump so to conclusions. I didn't say
so.”
“ You went up the stairs . . . you were the only
person who went up just at that one psychological


THE PAWNS COUNT
73
moment! He had his pocketbook with him when he
came in - he told Holderness so.”
“ And when you searched him it was gone," she
remarked calmly. “Dear me!”
“How do you know that I searched him? ” Fischer
demanded.
“How dare you ask me to give away my secrets ? "
shë replied.
“ Listen,” he began, striving with an almost pain-
ful effort to keep his voice down to the level of a
whisper, “ you and I together, we could do the most
marvellous things. I could let you into all my
schemes. They are great. They will be successful.
After the war is over —".
He held his breath for a moment. The tramp of
approaching footsteps warned him of the coming of
an intruder. The Captain came to a standstill be-
fore their chairs and saluted.
“Miss Van Teyl,” he said, “ there will be a mutiny
in the saloon if you don't come down and sing."
She almost sprang to her feet. The ship was roll-
ing a little, and she laid her fingers upon his arm.
“I meant to come long ago," she declared, “ but
Mr. Fischer has been so interesting. You will finish
telling me your experiences another time, won't
you?" she called out over her shoulder. “ There is
so much that I still want to hear.”
Fischer's reply was almost ungracious. He
watched their departure in silence, and afterwards
leaned further back in his chair. With long, nerv-
ous fingers he drew a black cigar from his case and
lit it. Then he folded his arms. For more than


74
THE PAWNS COUNT
half an hour he sat there motionless, smoking furi-
ously. He looked out into the chaos of the windy
darkness, he heard voices riding upon the seas,
shrieking and calling to him, voices to which he had
been deaf too long. The burden of these later years
of turbulent, brazen, selfish struggling, rolled back.
He had been a sentimentalist once, a willing seeker
after things which seemed to have passed him by.
At his age, he told himself, a man should still find
more than one place in the world.


CHAPTER IX
James Van Teyl glanced curiously at the small,
dark figure standing patiently before him, and then
back again at the wireless cable which he held in his
fingers. He was just back from a tiring day in Wall
Street, and was reclining in the most comfortable
easy-chair of his Hotel Plaza sitting-room.
“ Gee!” he murmured. “ This beats me. The
last thing I should have thought we wanted here
was a valet. The fellow who looks after this suite
has scarcely anything else to do. What did you
say your name was?”
“ Nikasti, sir."
Van Teyl carefully reconsidered the cable. It
certainly seemed to leave no room for misunder-
standing.
Please engage for our service, as valet, Nikasti.
See that he enters on his duties at once. Hope
land this evening. Your sister on board sends
love.-F.
“ Well that seems clear enough,” the young man
muttered, thrusting the form into his waistcoat
pocket. “You're here to stay, I guess, Nikasti? I
see you've brought your kit along."
“ In case you decided to engage me, sir,” the man
replied.
“Oh, you are engaged right enough,” Van Teyl


76
THE PAWNS COUNT
assured him. “You'd better make the best job you
can of putting out my evening clothes. If you
ring for the floor valet, he'll help you. The bed-
rooms are through that door."
“ Very good, sir!”
“I am going down to the barber's now," Van
Teyl continued, rising to his feet. “ Just remember
this, Nikasti — what a name, by the bye!”
“I could be called Kato,” the man suggested.
“ Kato for me all the time,” his prospective em-
ployer agreed. “Well, listen. My sister, Miss Van
Teyl, arrives from Europe on the Lapland this even-
ing. If she comes in or rings up, say I'm here and
I want to see her at once. You understand?"
“I understand, sir."
Van Teyl strolled out, and Kato disappeared into
the inner room. The floor valet, dressed in the dark
blue livery of the hotel, was already laying out his
master's dinner clothes. He eyed the intruder a
little truculently.
“ Who are you, anyway?” he inquired.
“ My name is Nikasti,” was the quiet reply.
6 Mr. Van Teyl has engaged me as his valet, to wait
upon him and Mr. Fischer.”
The man laid down the shirt into which he was
fixing the studs.
66 That's some news," he remarked bitterly.
66 To wait on Mr. Van Teyl and Mr. Fischer, eh?
What the hell do they want you for?”
Nikasti shook his head slowly. He was very
small, and his dark eyes seemed filled with
melancholy.


THE PAWNS COUNT
77
“ It is not for a very long time,” he ventured.
“ Long enough to do me out of my five dollars' tip
every week," the man grumbled. “ I'm a married
man, too, and a good American Blast you fellows,
coming and taking our jobs away! Can't think
what they let you into the country for.”
“I am sorry,” Nikasti murmured.
6 Your sorrow don't bring me in my five dollars,"
the valet retorted bitterly. “ There's only two
suites on this floor to work for, anyway, and this is
the only one worth a cent."
“I am taking the situation,” the other explained,
“ for the sake of experience. I do not wish to rob
you of your earnings. I will pay you the five dollars
a week while I stay here. You shall help me with
the work.”
“ That's a deal, my little yellow-skinned kid,” the
valet agreed in a tone of relief. “ I'll show you
where the things are kept.”
His new coadjutor bowed.
66 The telephone is ringing in the master's room,"
he observed. " You shall remain here, and I will
answer it.”
“ That goes, Jappy,” the man acquiesced. “If
it's a young lady take her name, but don't say that
Mr. Van Teyl's about. Forward young baggages
some of them are."
Nikasti glided from the room, closed the door,
and approached the telephone receiver.
“ Yes,” he acknowledged, “ these are the rooms of
Mr. Van Teyl. ... No, madam, Mr. Van Teyl
is not in at present,”


78
THE PAWNS COUNT
There was a moment's pause. Nikasti's face was
impenetrable as he listened, but his eyes glowed.
“ Yes, I understand, madam,” he said softly,
“ You are Miss Van Teyl, and you wish to speak to
your brother. The moment Mr. Van Teyl returns
I will ring you up or fetch you."
He replaced the receiver upon its hook, and re-
turned to the bedroom. For some little time he was
initiated into the mysteries of his new master's studs,
boots and shoes, and general taste in wearing ap-
parel. Then the latter entered the sitting-room,
and Nikasti obeyed his summons.
“ Any one called me up?" he inquired.
“No one, sir."
Van Teyl glanced at the clock in an undecided
manner.
“ I'll change right away,” he decided. “ Just set
things to rights in here, fill my cigarette case, and
hang round by the telephone."
Nikasti bowed, and the young man disappeared
into the inner room. His new attendant waited
until the door was closed. Then he removed the
receiver from its hook, laid it upon the table, and
moved stealthily towards the open fireplace. For
several moments he remained in an attitude of
listening, then with quick, lithe fingers he drew from
his pocket a cable dispatch, reread it with an air
of complete absorption, and committed it to the
flames. He watched it burn, and turned away from
the contemplation of its grey ashes with a sigh of
content. Suddenly he started. The door of the
sitting-room had been opened and closed. A tall,


THE PAWNS COUNT
79
broad-shouldered man, wearing gold-rimmed spec-
tacles, a long travelling coat and a Homburg hat,
was standing watching him. Nikasti was only mo-
mentarily disturbed. His look of gentle inquiry was
perfect.
“ You wish to see my master - Mr. Van Teyl?"
he asked.
“Where is he? ” Fischer demanded.
“ He is dressing in the next apartment. I will
take him your name."
Fischer threw his coat and hat upon the table.
“ That'll do directly,” he replied. “So you're
Nikasti? "
They looked at one another for a moment. The
face of the Japanese was smooth, bland, and im-
perturbable. His eyes were innocent even of any
question. Fischer's forehead was wrinkled, and his
brows drawn close together.
“I am Nikasti," the other acknowledged -“ Kato
Nikasti. Mr. Van Teyl has just engaged me as his
valet.”
“ You can take off the gloves,” Fischer told him.
“ I am Oscar Fischer.”
“ Oscar Fischer,” Nikasti repeated.
“ Yes!... Burning something when I came in,
weren't you? Looked like a cable, eh?”
“ A dispatch from London,” Nikasti confided.
“Nothing that would interest me, eh?”
“It was a family message," was the calm response.
“ It did not concern the affair which is between us."
“How came you to speak English like this ? "
Fischer inquired.


CHAPTER X
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 tele-
phone 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 de-
clared.
“ What's the hurry?” Van Teyl demanded.
“ You must have seen plenty of her the last ten
days."


82
THE PAWNS COUNT
“ That,” Fischer insisted, “ was a different mat-
ter. 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 be-
gan. “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 ex-
tensive dinner.


THE PAWNS COUNT
' 83
with you how » Van Teyl dem
she has a will of
“ 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 Amer-
ica 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 be-
fore 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 scaffold-
ing, and got up the ladder first. I'm not squealing,
but I've got to have that document, whatever it costs
me."


84
THE PAWNS COUNT
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-à-vis in blank astonishment.
“ You must be a damned fool, Fischer!” he ex-
claimed.
“ 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 spec-
tacles.
“ Up till now," he admitted smoothly, “I have
not been fortunate. I must confess, however, that I
was hoping for your good offices.”


THE PAWNS COUNT
85
“Pamela wouldn't take the slightest notice of any-
thing 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 sug-
gest 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, lean-
ing over the table, “ to believe that she would sacri-
fice 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.


86
THE PAWNS COUNT
“ 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 de-
clared, “ that I should find you a matter of a hun-
dred 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 splash-
ing 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


THE PAWNS COUNT
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 re-
minded 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,


88. THE PAWNS COUNT
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, per-
fectly 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."


CHAPTER XI
Nikasti, with a low bow, watched the disappear-
ance of the lift into which his two new masters,
James Van Teyl and Oscar Fischer, had stepped.
He waited until the indicator registered its safe ar-
rival on the ground floor. Then he slowly retraced
his steps along the corridor, entered the sitting-
room, and took up the telephone receiver, which was
still lying upon the table.
“Will you give me number 177,” he asked — “Miss
Van Teyl's suite?”
There was a moment's silence — then a voice at
the other end to which he made obeisance.
" It is Miss Van Teyl who speaks? I am Mr. Van
Teyl's valet. Mr. Van Teyl is here now and will be
glad if you will come in."
He replaced the receiver, listened and waited. In
a few moments there was the sound of a light foot-
step outside. The door was opened and Pamela
entered. She was still wearing the grey tailor-made
costume in which she had left the steamer.
“Why, where is Mr. Van Teyl? ” she asked, look-
ing around the room. “I have been ringing up for
the last ten minutes and couldn't get any answer. I
did not realise that it was the next suite."
“ Mr. Van Teyl is close at hand, madam,” Nikasti


90
THE PAWNS COUNT
replied. “ If you will kindly be seated, I will fetch
him.”
“How long have you been valet here?” Pamela
asked curiously.
“For a few hours only, madam,” was the grave
reply. “If you will be so good as to wait.”
He bowed low and left the room. Pamela took
up an evening paper and for a few minutes buried
herself in its contents. Then suddenly she held it
away from her and listened. A queer and un-
accountable impulse inspired her with a certain mis-
trust. There was no sound of movement in the
adjoining bedchamber, nor any sign of her brother's
presence. She opened the door and peered in. It
was empty and in darkness. Then, moved by that
same unaccountable impulse, she crossed the room
and listened at the door which led into her own
suite, and which she perceived was bolted on this
side as well as her own. She listened at first idly,
afterwards breathlessly. In a few moments she was
convinced that her senses were not playing her false.
Some one was moving stealthily about in her room,
the key to which was even at that moment in
her hand. She hastened to the door, to be con-
fronted by another surprise. The handle turned
but the door refused to open. She was locked
in.
Pamela was both generous and insistent in the
matter of bells. She found four, and she rang them
all together. The consequences were speedy, and
in their way satisfactory. Nikasti himself, a breath-
less chambermaid, a hurt but dignified waiter, and


THE PAWNS COUNT
gi
the floor valet, who had not even stopped to put on
his coat, entered together. They seemed a little
stupefied at finding Pamela alone and no sign of
any disturbance.
“Why was I locked in here? ” Pamela demanded
indignantly, taking them en bloc.
There was a little chorus of non-comprehension.
Nikasti stepped forward, waved to the others to be
silent, and bowed almost to the ground.
“It was a mistake easily to be understood,
madam,” he explained. “ The handle is a little stiff,
perhaps, but the door was not locked. We all
reached here together, I myself barely a yard in
advance. No key was used — and behold!”
Pamela was disposed to argue, but a moment's
reflection induced her to change her mind. This
falsehood of Nikasti's was at least interesting. She
waved the hotel servants away.
“I am sorry to have troubled you,” she said. “I
will remember it when I pay my bill.”
They took their leave, Nikasti showing them out.
When the last had departed, he turned back to the
centre table, from the other side of which Pamela
was watching him curiously.
“I cannot imagine," she remarked, “ how I could
have made such a mistake about the door. I tried
it twice or three times and it certainly seemed to me
to be locked.”
Nikasti moved a step nearer towards her. Some-
thing of the servility of his manner had gone. For
the first time she looked at him closely, appreciated
the tense immobility of his features, the still, pene-


92
THE PAWNS COUNT
trating light of his cold eyes. A queer premonition
of trouble for a moment unsteadied her.
“ There was no mistake,” he said softly. “The
door was locked.”
Even then she did not fully understand the posi-
tion. She leaned a little towards him.
“ It was locked?" she repeated.
“I locked it,” he told her. “It is locked now,
securely. I have been searching in your room for
something which I did not find. I think that you
had better give it to me. It will save trouble.”
“ Are you mad?” she demanded breathlessly.
“ Do I seem so ?” he replied. “ There is no per-
son more sane than I. I require from you the for-
mula of the new explosive, which you stole in Henry's
restaurant eleven days ago.”
The sense of mystery passed. It was simply
trouble of the ordinary sort from an unexpected
source.
“ Dear me!” she murmured. “Every one seems
interested in my little adventure. How did you hear
about it?"
“ I destroyed the cable telling me of all that hap-
pened only a few minutes ago," he explained. “It
was the foolish talk of the young inventor which
gave his secret to the world to scramble for."
“ It was very clever of your informant,” she re-
marked, “ to suggest that I was the fortunate thief.
Why not Oscar Fischer? It was his plot, not mine."
The eyes of the little Japanese seemed suddenly to
narrow. He realised quite well that she was talk-
ing simply to gain time.


THE PAWNS COUNT
93
“Madam,” he insisted, “ the formula. It is for
my country, and for my country I would risk much.”
“I do not doubt it,” she replied; “ but if I hold it,
I hold it for my country, too, and there is nothing
you would risk for Japan from which I should shrink
for America.”
He laid his hands upon the table. She turned her
ring and clenched her hand. She could see his
spring coming, realised in those few seconds that
here was an opponent of more desperate and subtle
calibre than Joseph. Whether her wits might have
failed her, fate remained her friend. There was a
knock at the door.
“ You hear? ” she cried breathlessly. “There is
some one there. Shall I call out?”
His hands and knee were gone from the table. He
was once more his old self, so completely the servant
that for a moment even Pamela was puzzled. It
seemed as though the events of the last few seconds
might have been part of a disordered dream. Ni-
kasti played to the cue of her fevered question and
entirely ignored them. He opened the door with a
respectful flourish — and John Lutchester walked
in.


THE PAWNS COUNT
95
not spoken of to any one. My business over here is
supposed to be secret. I am going round some of
the factories from which we are drawing supplies.”
She drew a long breath and began to feel a little
more like herself.
“ Well, after this,” she declared, “ I shall be sur-
prised at nothing. I have had one shock already
this evening, and you are the second.”
“ The first, I trust, was not disagreeable?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“ Without flattering you,” she answered, “ I think
I could say that I prefer the second.”
“I had an idea,” Lutchester remarked diffidently,
“ that my arrival seemed either opportune or in-
opportune — I could not quite tell which. Were
you in any way troubled or embarrassed by the pres-
ence of the little Japanese gentleman ? "
“Of course not,” she replied. “Why, he is
Jimmy's valet.”
“ How absurd of me!” Lutchester murmured.
“ By the bye, if Jimmy is your brother — Mr. Van
Teyl — I have a letter to him from a pal in town —
Dicky Green. It was to present it that I found my
way up here this evening. I was told that he
might put me in the way of a little golf during my
spare time over here."
He produced the note and laid it upon the table.
Pamela glanced at it and then at Lutchester. He
was carefully dressed in dinner clothes, black tie and
white waistcoat. He was, as usual, perfectly
groomed and immaculate. He had what she could
only describe to herself as an everyday air about


96
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him. He seemed entirely free from any mental
pressure or the wear and tear of great events.
“Golf? ” she repeated wonderingly. “ You ex-
pect to have a little spare time, then?”
“Well, I hope so," Lutchester replied. “ One
must have exercise. By the bye,” he went on, “ is
your brother in, do you happen to know? Perhaps
it would be more convenient if I came round in the
morning? I am staying in the hotel.”
“ Oh, for goodness sake, don't go away,” she
begged. “ Jimmy will be here presently, for certain.
To tell you the truth, we have been rather playing
hide-and-seek this evening, but it hasn't been alto-
gether his fault. Please sit down over there — you
will find cigarettes on the sideboard — and talk to
me.”
“ Delighted,” he agreed, taking the chair opposite
to her. “I suppose you want to know what became
of poor Graham?”
A sudden bewilderment appeared in her face. She
leaned towards him. Her forehead was knitted, her
eyes puzzled. There was a new problem to be
solved.
6 Why, Mr. Lutchester," she demanded, “how on
earth did you get here?”
“ Across the Atlantic,” he replied amiably. “Bit
too far the other way round.”
“Yes, but what on? ” she persisted. “I went
straight on to the Lapland after we parted last week,
and only arrived here an hour or so ago. There
was no other passenger steamer sailing for three
days."


THE PAWNS COUNT
97
“I was a stowaway,” he told her confidentially —
“ helped to shovel coals all the way over.”
: “ Don't talk nonsense!” she protested a little
sharply. “I dislike mysteries. Look at you! A
stowaway, indeed! Tell me the truth at once?”
He leaned forward in his chair towards her. An
ingenuous smile parted his lips. He had the air of
a schoolboy repeating a mischievous secret.
« The fact is, Miss Van Teyl,” he confided, “I
don't want it talked about, you know, but I had a
joy ride over."
"A what?"
“A joy ride," he repeated. “A cousin of mine
is in command of a destroyer, and she was under
orders to sail for New York. He hadn't the slight-
est right, really, to bring a passenger, as she was
coming over on a special mission, but I had word
about the trip over here, so I slipped on board late
one night — not a word to any one, you understand
— and — well, here I am. A more awful voyage,"
he went on impressively, “ you couldn't imagine. I
was sore all over within twenty-four hours of start-
ing. There's practically no deck on those things,
you know, for sitting out or anything of that sort.
The British Navy's nowhere for comfort, I can tell
you. The biggest liner for me, going back!”
Pamela was still a little dazed. Lutchester's
story did not sound in the least convincing. For the
moment, however, she accepted his account of him-
self.
“ Tell me now,” she begged, “about Captain
Graham?"


98
THE PAWNS COUNT
“ You haven't heard, then?”
“ I have heard nothing. How should I hear?”
“I took him straight back to my rooms after we
left you," Lutchester began. “He was in an awful
state of nerves and drugs and drink. Then I put
him to bed as soon as I could, and rang up a pal
of mine at the War Office to take him in hand.”
“Do you believe,” she asked curiously, “ that he
had really been robbed of his formula?”
“ Those amiable people who were interviewing him
in the chapel seemed to think so," Lutchester ob-
served.
“But you! What do you think? ” she persisted.
He smiled in superior fashion.
“I find it rather hard to bring myself to believe
that any one would take the trouble," he confided.
“ I have heard it said in my department that there
have been thirty-one new explosives invented since
the beginning of the war. Two of them only are in
use, and they're not much better than the old stuff.”
Pamela nodded understandingly.
“ All the same," she remarked, “I am not at all
sure that was the case with Captain Graham's in-
vention. There were rumours for days before that
something wonderful was happening on Salisbury
Plain. They had to cover up whole acres of ground
after his last experiments, and a man who was down
there told me that it seemed just as though the life
had been sucked out of it.”
Where did you collect all this information?"
her visitor inquired.
She shrugged her shoulders.


THE PAWNS COUNT
99
“ One hears everything in London."
Lutchester was sitting with his finger-tips pressed
together. For a moment his attention seemed fixed
upon them.
“ There are things,” he said, “which one hears,
too, in the far corners of the world on the At-
lantic, for instance.".
“You have had some news?" she interrupted.
“ It is really a private piece of information," he
told her, “and it won't be in the papers - not the
way the thing happened, anyway - but I don't sup-
pose there's any harm in telling you, as we were both
more or less mixed up in the affair, Graham was
shot the next day, on his way up to Northumber-
land.”
“ Shot?” she exclaimed incredulously.
“Murdered, if you'd like the whole thrill,” Lut-
chester continued. “Of course, we didn't get many
particulars in the wireless, but we gathered that he
was shot by some one passing him in a more powerful
car on a lonely stretch of the Great North Road.”
Pamela shuddered. She was for the moment pro-
foundly impressed. A certain air of unreality which
had hung over the events of that night was suddenly
banished. The whole tragedy rose up before her
eyes. The effect of it was almost stupefying.
“ Gave me quite a shock," Lutchester confided.
“ Somehow or other I had never been able to take
that night quite seriously. There was more than
a dash of melodrama in it, wasn't there? Seems
now as though those fellows must have been in
earnest, though."


100
THE PAWNS COUNT
co And as though Capt was the real thing." r first
“ And as though Captain Graham's formula,” she
reminded him gravely, “was the real thing.”
“Whereupon,” Lutchester observed, “our first
interest in the affair receives a certain stimulus.
Some one stole the formula. To judge from the be-
haviour of those amiable gentlemen connected with
Henry's Restaurant, it wasn't they. Some one had
been before them. Have you any theories, Miss Van
Teyl?”
“I can tell you who has," she replied. “Do you
remember when we were all grouped around that
notice — Méfiez-vous! Taisez-vous ! Les oreilles
ennemies vous écoutent !?”
“ Of course I do,” he assented.
“Do you remember Baron Sunyea making a re-
mark afterwards? He had been standing by and
heard everything Graham said.”
“ Can't say that I do,” Lutchester regretted, “but
I remember seeing him about the place.”
“ You promise to say or do nothing without my
permission, if I tell you something?" she went on.
“ Naturally!”
“ See, then, how diplomacy or secret service work,
or whatever you like to call it, can gather the ends of
the world together! Only a quarter of an hour ago
that Japanese valet of my brother's, having searched
my rooms in vain, demanded from me that formula ! ”
“ From you? " Lutchester gasped. “But you
haven't got it!”
“Of course not. On the other hand Sunyea
pitched upon me as being one of the possible thieves,
and cabled his instructions over."


THE PAWNS COUNT
103
“ That's all very well,” he grumbled, “ but every
one has an hour off for luncheon.”
“People who win wars don't lunch,” she declared
severely. “Here's Jimmy – I can hear his voice —
and he's brought some one up with him. I'll — let
you know about lunch.”
The door opened. James Van Teyl and Fischer
entered together.


CHAPTER XIII
The first few seconds after the entrance of the two
men were monopolised by the greetings of Pamela
with her brother. Fischer stood a little in the back-
ground, his eyes fixed upon Lutchester. His brain
was used to emergencies, but he found himself here
confronted by an unanswerable problem.
“Say, this is Mr. Lutchester, isn't it?” he in-
quired, holding out his hand.
“ The same,” Lutchester assented politely. “We
met at Henry's some ten days ago, didn't we?”
“ Mr. Lutchester has brought us a letter from
Dicky Green, Jimmy," Pamela explained, as she with-
drew from her brother's arms. “Quite unnecessary,
as it happens, because I met him in London just be-
fore we sailed.”
6 Very glad to meet you, Mr. Lutchester,” Jimmy
declared, wringing his hand with American cor-
diality. “Dicky's an old pal of mine — one of the
best. We graduated in the same year from Har-
vard.”
Conversation for a few minutes was platitudinous.
Van Teyl, although he showed few signs of his re-
cent excesses, was noisy and boisterous, clutching at
this brief escape from a situation which he dreaded.
Fischer on the other hand, remained in the back-


THE PAWNS COUNT
105
ground, ominously silent, thinking rapidly, specu-
lating and theorising as to the coincidence, if it were
coincidence, of finding Lutchester and Pamela to-
gether. He listened to the former's polite conver-
sation, never once letting his eyes wander from his
face. All his thoughts were concentrated upon one
problem. The mysterious escape of Sandy Graham,
which had sent him flying from the country, remained
unsolved. Of Pamela's share in it he had already
his suspicions. Was it possible that Lutchester was
the other and the central figure in that remarkable
rescue? He waited his opportunity, and, during a
momentary lull in the cheerful conversation, broke in
with his first question.
“ Say, Mr. Lutchester, you haven't any twin
brother, have you?”
“No brother at all,” Lutchester admitted.
“ Then, how did you get over here? You were at
Henry's weren't you, on the night the Lapland
sailed? You didn't cross with us, and there's no
other steamer due for two days."
“ Then I can't be here," Lutchester declared.
«« The thing's impossible.”
“Guess you'll have to explain, if you want to save
me from a sleepless night,” Fischer persisted.
Lutchester smiled. He had the air of one enjoy-
ing the situation immensely.
“Well," he said, “I have had to confess to Miss
Van Teyl here, so I may as well make a clean breast
of it to you. To every one else I meet in New York,
I shall say that I came over on the Lapland. I
really came over on a destroyer.”


106
THE PAWNS COUNT
Fischer's face seemed to become more set and grim
than ever,
“A British destroyer," he muttered to him-
self.
“ It was kind of a joy ride,” Lutchester explained
confidentially, “a cousin of mine who was in com-
mand came in to see me and say good-by, just after
I'd received my orders from the head of my depart-
ment to come out here on the next steamer, and he
smuggled me on board that night. Mum's the word,
though, if you please. We asked nobody's leave.
It would have taken about a month to have heard
anything definite from the Admiralty.”
“ A British destroyer come across the Atlantic,
eh?” Mr. Fischer muttered. “ She must have come
out on a special mission, then, I imagine.”
“ That is not for me to say,” Lutchester observed,
with stiff reticence.
Pamela suddenly and purposely intervened. She
turned towards Fischer.
“Mr. Lutchester brought some rather curious
news," she observed. “He got it by wireless. Do
you remember all the fuss there was about the dis-
appearance of Captain Holderness' friend at
Henry's?”
“ I heard something about it,” he admitted grimly.
“ Well, Captain Graham was in my party, so
naturally I was more interested than any one else.
To all appearance he entered Henry's Restaurant,
walked up the stairs, and disappeared into the skies.
The place was ransacked everywhere for him, but
he never turned up. Well, the very next day he was


108
THE PAWNS COUNT
absence.
shall give ying. A foreb she
nary type of a nice, well-bred, unintelligent, self-
sufficient Englishman, or "
“Or what?” Fischer asked, with interest.
Pamela watched the smoke curl from the end of
her cigarette.
“Well, I scarcely know how to finish,” she con-
fessed, “ only sometimes when I am talking to him I
feel that he can scarcely be as big a fool as he seems,
and then I wonder. Jimmy,” she went on, shaking
her head at him, “you're not looking well. You've
been sitting up too late and getting into bad habits
during my absence. Open confession, now, if you
please. If it's a girl, I shall give you my blessing."
Van Teyl groaned and said nothing. A forebod-
ing of impending trouble depressed Pamela. She
turned towards Fischer and found in his grim face
confirmation of her fears.
“ What does this mean?" she demanded.
“ Your brother will explain," Fischer replied.
“ It is better that he should tell you everything.”
“ Everything? ” she repeated. “What is there to
tell. What have you to do with my brother, any-
way? " she added fiercely.
“ You must not look at me as though I were in
any way to blame for what has happened,” was the
insistent reply. “On the contrary, I have been very.
lenient with your brother. I am still prepared to be
lenient - upon certain conditions."
The light of battle was in Pamela's eyes. She
fought against the significance of the man's ominous
words. This was his first blow, then, and directed
against her.


THE PAWNS COUNT
109
“I begin to understand,” she said. “Please go
on. Let me hear everything."
Van Teyl had turned to the sideboard. He mixed
and drank off a whisky and soda. Then he swung
around.
“ I'll make a clean breast of it in a few words,
Pamela,” he promised. “I've gambled with Fischer's
money, lost it, forged a transfer of his certificates to
meet my liabilities, and I am in his power. He
could have me hammered and chucked into Sing
Sing, if he wanted to. That's all there is about
it.”
Pamela stood the shock well. She turned to
Fischer.
“ How much of this are you responsible for?" she
asked.
“ That,” he objected, “is an impotent question.
It is not I who had the moulding of your brother's
character. It is not I who made him a forger and
a weakling."
Van Teyl's arm was upraised. An oath broke
from his lips. Pamela seized him firmly and drew
him away.
“ Be quiet, James," she begged. “Let us hear
what Mr. Fischer is going to do about it.”
“ That depends upon you,” was the cold reply.
Pamela stood at the head of the table, between
the two men, and laughed. Her brother had sunk
into a chair, and his head had dropped moodily upon
his folded arms. She looked from one to the other
and a new sense of strength inspired her. She felt
that if she were not indeed entirely mistress of the


IIO
THE PAWNS COUNT
situation, yet the elements of triumph were there to
her hand.
" This is living, at any rate," she declared.
“First of all I discover that your Japanese servant
is a spy –”
“Nikasti!” Van Teyl interrupted furiously.
“Blast him! I knew that there was something
wrong about that fellow, Fischer.”
Fischer frowned.
“What's he been up to?” he inquired.
“ Well, to begin with," Pamela explained, “he
searched my room, then he locked me in here, and
was proceeding to threaten me when fortunately Mr.
Lutchester arrived.”
" Threaten you - what about?” Fischer de-
manded.
“He seemed to have an absurd idea,” Pamela ex-
plained sweetly, “ that I might have somewhere con-
cealed upon my person the formula which was stolen
from Captain Graham last Monday week at Henry's
Restaurant. It makes quite a small world of it,
doesn't it?"
"I will deal with Nikasti for this," Fischer
promised, “ if it is true. Meanwhile?”
“ No sooner have I got over that little shock,"
Pamela went on, “ than you turn up with this melo-
dramatic story, and an offer from Mr. Fischer, which
I can read in his face. Really, I feel that I shall
hear the buzz of a cinema machine in a moment.
How much do you owe him, Jimmy? "
“ Eighty-nine thousand dollars,” the young man
grpanede


THE PAWNS COUNT
III
“ I'll write you a cheque to-morrow morning,”
Pamela promised. “Will that do, Mr. Fischer?"
" It is the last thing I desire,” was the calm re-
ply.
“Really! Well, perhaps now you will come to
the point. Perhaps you will tell me what it is that
you do want?"
“ Stolen property,” Fischer announced deliber-
ately –“ stolen property, however, to which I have
a greater right than you.”
She laughed at him mockingly.
“I think not, Mr. Fischer,” she said. “ You
really don't deserve it, you know.” .
“ And why not?"
“ Just see how you have bungled! You bait the
trap, the poor man walks into it, and you allow
another to forestall you. Not only that, but you
actually allow Japan to come into the game, and but
for Mr. Lutchester's appearance we might both of
us have been left planté là. No, Mr. Fischer! You
don't deserve the formula, and you shall not have
it. I'll pay my brother's debt to you in dollars —
no other way.”
“ Dollars," Mr. Fischer told her sternly, “ will
never buy the forged transfer. Dollars will never
keep your brother out of the city police court or
Sing Sing afterwards. There isn't much future for
a young man who has been through it.”
Van Teyl was upon him suddenly with a low, mur-
derous cry. Fischer had no time to resist, no chance
of success if he had attempted it. He was borne
backwards on to the lounge, his assailant's hand


II2
THE PAWNS COUNT
upon his throat. The young man was beside him-
self with drink and fury. The words poured from
his lips, incoherent, hot with rage.
“ You — hound! You've made my life a hell!
You've plotted and schemed to get me into your
power! ... There! Do you feel the life going out
of you? ... My sister, indeed! You!... You
scum of the earth! You ..."
" James ! ”
The sound of Pamela's voice unnerved him. His
fit of passion was spent. She dragged him easily
away.
“ Don't be a fool, Jimmy!” she begged. “You
can't settle accounts like that.”
“ Can't I? ” he muttered. “If we'd been alone,
Pamela . .. my God, if he and I had been alone
here!”
“ Jimmy,” she said, “ you're a fool, and you've
been drinking. Fetch the water bottle.”
He obeyed, and she dashed water in Fischer's
face. Presently he opened his eyes, groaned and sat
up. There were two livid marks upon his throat.
Van Teyl watched him like a crouching animal. His
eyes were still lit with sullen fire. The lust for
killing was upon him. Fischer sat up and blinked.
He felt the atmosphere of the room, and he knew
his danger. His hand stole into his hip pocket, and
a small revolver suddenly flashed upon his knees.
He drew a long breath of relief. He was like a
fugitive who had found sanctuary.
“ So that's the game, James Van Teyl, is it? ” he
exclaimed. “ Now listen.”


THE PAWNS COUNT
113
He adjusted the revolver with a click. His cruel,
long fingers were pressed around its stock.
“I am not threatening you,” he went on. “I am
not fond of violence, and I don't believe in it. This
is just in case you come a single yard nearer to me.
Now, Miss Van Teyl, my business is with you. We
won't fence any longer. You will hand over to me
the pocketbook which you stole from Captain
Graham in Henry's Restaurant. Hand it over to
me intact, you understand. In return I will give
you the forged transfer of stock, and leave it to your
sense of honour as to whether you care to pay your
brother's debt or not. If you decline to consider my
proposition, I shall ring up Joseph Neville, your
brother's senior partner. I shall not even wait for
to-morrow, mind. I shall make an appointment, and
I shall place in his hands the proof of your brother's
robbery.”
“Perhaps,” Pamela murmured, “I was wrong to
stop you, Jimmy. ... Anything else, Mr. Fischer ? "
“ Just this. I would rather have carried this
matter through in a friendly fashion, for reasons at
which I think you can guess.”
She shook her head.
“ You flatter my intelligence !” she told him scorn-
fully.
“I will explain, then. I desire to offer myself as
your suitor.”
She laughed at him without restraint or considera-
tion.
“I would rather marry my brother's valet !” she
declared.


114
THE PAWNS COUNT
“ You are entirely wrong," he protested. “You
are wrong, too, in holding up cards against me. We
are on the same side. You are an American, and
so am I. I swear that I desire nothing that is not
for your good. You have wonderful gifts, and
I have great wealth and opportunities. I have
also a sincere and very heartfelt admiration for
you.”
“I have never been more flattered!” Pamela
scoffed.
He looked a little wistfully from one to the other.
Antagonism and dislike were written in their faces.
Even Pamela, who was skilled in the art of subter-
fuge, made little effort to conceal her aversion,
Nevertheless, he continued doggedly.
"What does it matter," he demanded, “who
handles this formula — you or I? Our faces are
turned in the same direction. There is this differ-
ence only with me. I want to make it the basis of
a kindlier feeling in Washington towards my father's
country.”
Pamela's eyebrows were raised.
“ Are you sure," she asked, “ that the formula it-
self would not find its way into your father's coun-
try? "
“ As to that I pledge my word,” he replied. “I
am an American citizen.”
“Looks like it, doesn't he!” Van Teyl jeered.
“ Tell us what you have been doing in Berlin,
then?” Pamela inquired.
“I had a definite mission there," Fischer assured
them, “which I hope to bring to a definite conclus


THE PAWNS COUNT
115
sion. If you are an American citizen in the broadest
sense of the word, England is no more to you than
Germany. I want to place before some responsible
person in the American Government, a proposal -
an official proposal — the acceptance of which will
be in years to come of immense benefit to her."
“ And the quid pro quo?" Pamela asked gently.
“I am not here for the purpose of gratifying curi-
osity,” Fischer replied, “but if you will take this
matter up seriously, you shall be the person through
whom this proposal shall be brought before the
American Government. The whole of the negotia-
tions shall be conducted through you. If you suc-
ceed, you will be known throughout history as the
woman who saved America from her great and grow-
ing danger. If you fail, you will be no worse off
than you are now.”
“And you propose to hand over the conduct of
these negotiations to me,” Pamela observed, “ in re-
turn for what?"
“ The pocketbook which you took from Captain
Graham.”
“ So there we are, back again at the commence-
ment of our discussion," Pamela remarked. “ Are
you going to repeat that you want this formula for
Washington and not for Berlin? "
“My first idea,” Fischer confessed, "was to hand
it over to Germany. I have changed my views.
Germany has great explosives of her own. This
formula shall be used in a different fashion. It shall
be a lever in the coming negotiations between Amer-
ica and Germany."


116
THE PAWNS COUNT
“We have had a great deal of conversation to no
practical purpose,” Pamela declared. “Why are
you so sure that I have the formula ? "
Fischer frowned slightly. He had recovered him-
self now, and his tone was as steady and quiet as
ever. Only occasionally his eyes wandered to where
James Van Teyl was fidgetting about the table, and
at such times his fingers tightened upon the stock of
his revolver.
“ It is practically certain that you have the pa-
pers,” he pointed out. “ You were the first person
to go up the stairs after Graham had been rendered
unconscious. Joseph admits that he had been forced
to leave him — the orchestra was waiting to play.
He was alone in that little room. That you should
have known of its existence and his presence there is
surprising, but nothing more. Furthermore, I am
convinced that you were in some way concerned with
his rescue later. You visited Hassan and you visited
Joseph. From the latter you procured the key of
the chapel. If only he had had the courage to tell
the truth — well, we will let that pass. You have
the papers, Miss Van Teyl. I am bidding a great
price for them. If you are a wise woman, you will
not hesitate."
There was a knock at the door. They all three
turned towards it a little impatiently. Even Pamela
and her brother felt the grip of an absorbing prob-
lem. To their surprise, it was Lutchester who re-
appeared upon the threshold. In his hand he held
a small sealed packet.
“ So sorry to disturb you all," he apologised. “I


THE PAWNS COUNT
117
have something here which I believe belongs to you,
Miss Van Teyl. I thought I'd better bring it up and
explain. From the way your little Japanese friend
was holding on to it, I thought it might be important.
It is a little torn, but that isn't my fault.”
He held it out to Pamela. It was a long packet
torn open at one end. From it was protruding a
worn, brown pocketbook. Pamela's hand closed
upon it mechanically. There was a dazed look in her
eyes. Fischer's fingers stole once more towards the
pocket into which, at Lutchester's entrance, he had
slipped his revolver.


CHAPTER XIV
Lutchester, to all appearance, remained sublimely
unconscious of the tension which his words and ap-
pearance seemed to have created. He had strolled
a little further into the room, and was looking down
at the packet which he still held.
“ You are wondering how I got hold of this, of
course?” he observed. “ Just one of those simple
little coincidences which either mean a great deal or
nothing at all.”
“ How did you know it was mine?” Pamela asked,
almost under her breath.
“ I'll explain,” Lutchester continued. “I was in
the lobby of the hotel, a few minutes ago, when I
heard the fire bell outside. I hurried out and
watched the engines go by from the sidewalk. I have
always been rather interested in "
“Never mind that, please. Go on,” Pamela asked,
almost under her breath.
“ Certainly,” Lutchester assented. “On the way
back, then, I saw a little Japanese, who was coming
out of the hotel, knocked down by a taxicab which
skidded nearly into the door. I don't think he was
badly hurt — I'm not even sure that he was hurt at
all. I picked up this packet from the spot where he
had been lying, and I was on the point of taking it


THE PAWNS COUNT
119
to the office when I saw your name upon it, Miss
Van Teyl, in what seemed to me to be your own
handwriting, so I thought I'd bring it up.”
He laid it upon the table. Pamela's eyes seemed
fastened upon it. She turned it over nervously.
“ It is very kind of you, Mr. Lutchester,” she mur-
mured.
“ I'll be perfectly frank,” he went on. “I should
have found out where the little man who dropped it
had disappeared to, and restored it to him, but I
fancied — of course, I may have been wrong — that
you and he were having some sort of a disagreement,
a few minutes ago, when I happened to come in.
Anyway, that was in my mind, and I thought I'd run
no risks.”
“You did the very kindest and most considerate
thing," Pamela declared.
6 The little Japanese must have been our new
valet,” James Van Teyl observed. “I'm beginning
to think that he is not going to be much of an acqui-
sition.”
“ You'll probably see something of him in a few
minutes,” Lutchester remarked. “I will wish you
good night, Miss Van Teyl. Good night!”
Pamela's reiterated thanks were murmured and
perfunctory. Even James Van Teyl's hospitable
instincts seemed numbed. They allowed Lutchester
to depart with scarcely a word. With the closing
of the door, speech brought them some relief from a
state of tension which was becoming intolerable.
Even then Fischer at first said nothing. He had
risen noiselessly to his feet, his right hand was in


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the sidepocket of his coat, his eyes were fixed upon
the table.
“ So this is why you insisted upon a valet!” James
Van Teyl exclaimed, his voice thick with anger.
“ He's planted here to rob for you! Is that it, eh,
Fischer?"
Pamela drew the packet towards her and stood
with her right palm covering it. Fischer seemed
still at a loss for words.
“I can assure you," he said at last fervently,
6 that if that packet was stolen from Miss Van Teyl
by Nikasti, it was done without my instigation. It
is as much a surprise to me as to any of you. We
can congratulate ourselves that it is not on the way
to Japan.”
Pamela nodded.
“He is speaking the truth,” she asserted. “Nika-
sti is not out to steal for others. He is playing the
same game as all of us, only he is playing it for
his own hand. Mr. Fischer has brought him here for
some purpose of his own, without a doubt, but I am
quite sure that Nikasti never meant to be any one's
cat’s-paw.”
6 Believe me, that is the truth,” Fischer agreed.
“I will admit that I brought Nikasti here with a
purpose, but upon my honour I swear that until this
evening I never dreamed that he even knew of the
existence of the formula.”
“ Oh! we are not the only people in the world who
are clever," Pamela declared, with an unnatural little
laugh. “ The first man who took note of Sandy
Graham's silly words as he rushed into Henry's was


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121
Baron Sunyea. I saw him stiffen as he listened.
He even uttered a word of remonstrance. Japan in
London heard. Japan in your sitting-room here, in
ten days' time, knew everything there was to be
known.”
“I didn't bring Nikasti here for this,” Fischer
insisted.
“Perhaps not,” Pamela conceded, “ but if you're
a good American, what are you doing at all with a
Japanese secret agent?”
“ If you trust me, you shall know,” Fischer prom-
ised. “ Listen to reason. Let us have finished with
one affair at a time. You very nearly lost that
formula to Japan. Hand over the pocketbook.
You see how dangerous it is for it to remain in your
possession. I'll keep my share of the bargain. I'll
put my scheme before you. Come, be reasonable.
See, here's the forged transfer.”
He drew a paper from his pocket and spread it
out upon the table. His long, hairy fingers were
shaking with nervousness.
6 Come, make it a deal,” he persisted. “You can
pay me the defalcations or not, as you choose.
There is your brother's freedom and the honour of
your name, in exchange for that pocketbook.”
Pamela, after all her hesitation, seemed to make
up her mind with startling suddenness. She thrust
the pocketbook towards Fischer, took the transfer
from his fingers and tore it into small pieces.
“I give in,” she said. “ This time you have
scored. We will talk about the other matter to-
morrow.”


I22
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Fischer buttoned up the packet carefully in his
breast pocket. His eyes glittered. He turned to-
wards the door. On the threshold he looked around.
He stretched out his hand towards Pamela.
“ Believe me, you have done well,” he assured her
hoarsely. "I shall keep my word. I will set you
'in the path of great things.”
He left the room, and they heard the furious ring-
ing of the lift bell. Pamela was tearing into smaller
pieces the forged transfer. Van Teyl, a little pale;
but with new life in his frame, was watching the
fragments upon the floor. There was a tap at the
door. Nikasti entered. Pamela's fingers paused in
their task. Van Teyl stared at him. The new-
comer was carrying the evening papers, which he
laid down upon the table.
“Is there anything more I can do before I go to
bed, sir?” he asked, with his usual reverential little
bow.
“ Aren't you hurt? " Van Teyl exclaimed.
“ Hurt?” Nikasti replied wonderinglý. « Oh,
no!"
“ Weren't you knocked down by à taxicab,"
Pamela asked, " outside the hotel?”
Nikasti looked from one to the other with an air
of gentle surprise.
“I have been to my rooms in the servants' quar-
ters,” he told them, “on the upper floor. I have
not been downstairs at all. I have been unpacking
and arranging my own humble belongings."
Van Teyl clasped his forehead.
“Let me get this !” he exclaimed. “You haven't


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123
been down in the lobby of the hotel, you haven't
been knocked down by a taxicab that skidded, you
haven't lost a pocketbook which you had previously
stolen from my sister?”
Nikasti shook his head. He seemed completely
mystified. He watched Pamela's face carefully.
“ Perhaps there has been some mistake," he sug-
gested quietly. “My English is sometimes not very
good. I would not dream of trying to rob the young
lady. I have not lost any pocketbook, I have not
descended lower down in the hotel than this floor.”
Yan Tey] waved him away, accepted his farewell
saluțation, and waited until the door was closed.
“ Look here, Pamela," he protested, turning almost
appealingly towards her, “ my brain wasn't made for
this sort of thing. What in thunder does it all
mean?”
Pamela looked at the fragments of paper upon the
floor and sank back in an easy chair.
“ Jimmy," she confided, “ I don't know."


CHAPTER XV
Pamela opened her eyes the next morning upon
a distinctly pleasing sight. At the foot of her bed
was an enormous basket of pink carnations. On
the counterpane by her side lay a smaller cluster of
twelve very beautiful dark red Gloire de Dijon roses.
Attached to these latter was a note.
“ When did these flowers come, Leah?” Pamela
asked the maid who was moving about the room.
“ An hour ago, madam,” the girl told her.
“ Read the name on the card,” Pamela directed,
pointing to the mass of pink blossoms.
“ Mr. Oscar H. Fischer," the girl read out,“ with
respectful compliments."
Pamela smiled.
“ He doesn't know, then,” she murmured to her-
self. “ Get my bath ready, Leah.”
The maid disappeared into the inner room.
Pamela tore open the note attached to the roses by
her side, and read it slowly through:
Dear Miss Van Teyl,
I am so very sorry, but the luncheon we had half-
planned for to-day must be postponed. I have an urgent
message to go south, to inspect — but no secrets! It's
horribly disappointing. I hope we may meet in a few
days.
Sincerely yours,
John LUTCHESTER.


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125
Pamela laid down the note, conscious of an inde-
fined but distinct sensation of disappointment.
After all, it was not so wonderful to wake up and
find oneself in New York. The sun was pleasant,
the little puffs of air which came in through the win-
dow across the park, delightful and exhilarating, yet
something had gone out of the day. Accustomed
to self-analysis, she asked herself swiftly — what?
It was, without a doubt, something to do with
Lutchester's departure. She tried to face the ques-
tion of her disappointment. Was it possible to feel
any real interest in a man who preferred a Govern-
ment post to the army at such a time, and who had
brought his golf clubs out to America ? Her im-
agination for a moment revolved around the prob-
lem of his apparently uninteresting and yet, in some
respects, contradictory personality. Was it really
her fancy or had she, every now and then, detected
behind that flamboyant manner traces of something
deeper and more serious, something which seemed
to indicate a life and aims of which nothing ap-
peared upon the surface? She clasped her knees
and sat up in bed, listening to the sound of the run-
ning water in the next room. Was there any pos-
sible explanation of his opportune appearance on
the night before with a dummy pocketbook and a
concocted story? The cleverest man on earth could
surely never have gauged her position with Fischer
and intervened in such a manner at the psychological
moment.
Yet he had done it, she reflected, gazing
thoughtfully at Fischer's gift. If, indeed, he knew


126
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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. Sup-
posing 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 re-
mained 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 break-
fast.
“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
änd 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 im-


THE PAWNS COUNT
127
agine 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 con-
fusing. 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 thou-
sand dollars I made out last night before I went to
bed,” she added, passing it over to him. “Just re-
place 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.


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“ 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 un-
derstand 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 serv-
ice work. Where do you come in, anyway? What
are you going to Washington for?”
She smiled.
“ Queer tastes, haven't I, Jimmy?”
6 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 Ad-
ministration, 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


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129
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 informa-
tion to get. Sometimes it's been just about com-
mercial 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


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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 Lon-
don, 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


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131
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 know, Jimmy," she confided, drop-
ping 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 author-
ity.”
“ 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


CHAPTER XVI
An elderly New Yorker, a man of fashion, re-
nowned for his social perceptions, pressed his com-
panion'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 button-
hole, and he carried a cane — both unusual circum-
stances. After fifty years of strenuous living, Mr.


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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 ref-
erence to that little debt of your brother's ".
“Please don't say a word, Mr. Fischer,” she inter-
rupted. “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 !"


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135
“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 Father-
land. You can sympathise. a little with my unfor-
tunate 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 curios-
ity. Did you examine the contents of the pocket-
book?"
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 ma-
chine.
“No," he answered, except to take out and de-
stroy 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
formulæ."
“ Are you a chemist, Mr. Fischer?” she inquired.


136
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“ Not in the least,” he acknowledged. “I recog-
nised just enough of the formulæ on the last page
to realise that there were entirely new elements be-
ing 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 be-
ing.
“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


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137
even this is for the best? America to-day is hypno-
tised by a maudlin, sentimental affection for Eng-
land, a country from whom she never received any-
thing 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.
6 Nothing else is worth while," was the instant
answer.
66 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


138
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arsenals are working night and day, her soldiers are
training, her feet 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."
“ Will Germany be in a position to help us after
the war? ” Pamela asked.
“Never doubt it,” Fischer replied vehemently.
“ Before peace is signed the sea power of England
will be broken. Financially she will be ruined. She
is a country without economic science, without fore-
sight, without statesmen. The days of her golden
opportunities have passed, frittered away. Unless
we of our great pity bind up her wounds, England
will bleed to death before the war is over.”
“That, you must remember," Pamela said prac-
tically, “is your point of view.”
“ I could tell you things —” he began.
“ Don't,” she begged. “I know what your out-
look is now. Be definite. Leaving aside that other
matter, what is your proposition to me?"
Fischer walked for a while in silence. They had
turned back some time since, and were once more
nearing the Plaza.
“ You ask me to leave out what is most vital,”
he said at last. “I have never been married, Miss
Van Teyl. I am wealthy. I am promised great
honours at the end of this war. When that comes,


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139
I shall rest. If you will be my wife, you can choose
your home, you can choose your title.”
She shook her head.
“But I am not sure that I even like you, Mr.
Fischer,” she objected. “We have fought in oppo-
site camps, and you have had the bad taste to be
victorious. Besides which, you were perfectly brutal
to James, and I am not at all sure that I don't resent
your bargain with me. As a matter of fact, I am
feeling very bitter towards you."
“ You should not,” he remonstrated earnestly,
“Remember that, after all, women are only dabblers
in diplomacy. Their very physique prevents them
from playing the final game. You have brains, of
course, but there are other things — experience,
courage, resource. You would be a wonderful help-
mate, Miss Van Teyl, even if your individual and
unaided efforts have not been entirely successful.”
She sighed. Pamela just then was a picture of
engaging humility.
“ It is so hard for me,” she murmured. “I do
not want to marry yet. I do not wish to think of
it. And so far as you are concerned, Mr. Fischer
— well, I am simply furious when I think of your
attitude last night. But I love adventures.”
“I will promise you all the adventures that can
be crammed into your life," he urged.
“But be more definite,” she persisted. “Where
should we start? You are over here now on some
important mission. Tell me more about it?"
“I cannot just yet,” he answered. “ All that I
can promise you is that, if I am successful, it will


140
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stop the war just as surely as Captain Graham's new
explosive."
“I thought you were going to make a confidante
of me," she complained.
He suddenly gripped her arm. It was the first
time he had touched her, and she felt a queer surging
of the blood to her head, a sudden and almost uncon-
trollable repulsion. The touch of his long fingers
was like flame; his eyes, behind their sheltering
spectacles, glowed in a curious, disconcerting fash-
ion.
“ To the woman who was my pledged wife," he
said, “I would tell everything. From the woman
who gave me her hand and became my ally I would
have no secrets. Come, I have a message, more
than a message, to the American people. I am tak-
ing it to Washington before many hours have passed.
If it is your will, it should be you to whom I will
deliver it.”
Pamela walked on with her head in the air.
Fischer was leaning a little towards her. Every
now and then his mouth twitched slightly. His eyes
seemed to be seeking to reach the back of her brain.
“ Please go now," she begged. “I can't think
clearly while you are here, and I want to make up
my mind. I will send to you when I am ready."


CHAPTER XVII
Pamela sat that afternoon on the balcony of the
country club at Baltusrol and approved of her sur-
roundings. Below her stretched a pleasant vista of
rolling greensward, dotted here and there with the
figures of the golfers. Beyond, the misty blue back-
ground of rising hills.
“I can't tell you how peaceful this all seems,
Jimmy,” she said to her brother, who had brought
her out in his automobile. “One doesn't notice the
air of strain over on the Continent, because it's the
same everywhere, but it gets a little on one's nerves,
all the same. I positively love it here."
“ It's fine to have you," was the hearty response.
“ Gee, that fellow coming to the sixteenth hole can
play some!”
Pamela directed her attention idly towards the
figure which her brother indicated — a man in light
tweeds, who played with an easy and graceful
swing, and with the air of one to whom the game
presented no difficulties whatever. She watched him
drive for the seventeenth — a long, raking ball, fully
fifty yards further than his opponent's — watched
him play a perfect mashie shot to the green and hole
out in three.
“ A birdie," James Van Teyl murmured. “I say,
Pamela ! "


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She took no notice. Her eyes were still follow-
ing the figure of the golfer. She watched him drive
at the last hole, play a chip shot on to the green,
and hit the hole for a three. The frown deepened
upon her forehead. She was looking very uncom-
promising when the two men ascended the steps.
“I didn't know, Mr. Lutchester, that there were
any factories down this way,” she remarked severely,
as he paused before her in surprise.
For a single moment she fancied that she saw a
flash of annoyance in his eyes. It was gone so
swiftly, however, that she remained uncertain. He
held out his hand, laughing.
“ Fairly caught out, Miss Van Teyl,” he con-
fessed. “You see, I was tempted, and I fell.”
His companion, an elerly, clean-shaven man,
passed on. Pamela glanced after him.
“ Who is your opponent ? ” she asked.
“ Just some one I picked up on the tee," Lut-
chester explained. “How is our friend Fischer this
morning?”
“I walked with him for an hour in the Park,"
Pamela replied. “He seemed quite cheerful. I
have scarcely thanked you yet for returning the
pocketbook, have I?”
His face was inscrutable.
“ Couldn't keep a thing that didn't belong to me,
could I? ” he observed.
“ You have a marvellous gift for discovering lost
property,” she murmured.
“For discovering the owners, you mean," he re-
torted, with a little bow,


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143
“ You're some golfer, I see, Mr. Lutchester," Van
Teyl interposed.
“I was on my game to-day,” Lutchester admitted.
“ With a little luck at the seventh,” he continued
earnestly, “I might have tied the amateur record.
You see, my ball — but there, I mustn't bore you
now. I must look after my opponent and stand him
a drink. We shall meet again, I daresay.”
Lutchester passed on, and Pamela glanced up at
her brother.
“Is he a sphinx or a fool? ” she whispered.
“ Don't ask me," Van Teyl replied. “ Seems to
me you were a bit rough on him, anyway. I don't
see why the fellow shouldn't have a day's holiday
before he gets to work. If I had his swing, it
would interfere with my career, I know that, well
enough."
“ Did you recognise the man with whom he was
playing?” Pamela inquired.
“ Can't say that I did. His face seems familiar,
too."
“Go and see if you can find out his name,” Pamela
begged. “It isn't ordinary curiosity. I really
want to know.”
“ That's easy enough,” Van Teyl replied, rising
from his place. And I'll order tea at the same
time.”
Pamela leaned a little further back in her chair.
Her eyes seemed to be fixed upon the pleasant pros-
pect of wooded slopes and green, upward-stretching
sward. As a matter of fact, she saw only two faces
- Fischer's and Lutchester's. Her chief impulse in


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life for the immediate present seemed to have re-
solved itself into a fierce, almost a passionate curios-
ity. It was the riddle of those two brains which
she was so anxious to solve. ... Fischer, the
cold, subtle intriguer, with schemes at the back of
his mind which she knew quite well that, even in
the moment of his weakness, he intended to keep to
himself; and Lutchester, with his almost cynical de-
votion to pleasure, yet with his unaccountable habit
of suggesting a strength and qualities to which he
neither laid nor established any claim. Of the two
men it was Lutchester who piqued her, with whom
she would have found more pleasure in the battle of
wits. She found herself alternately furious and
puzzled with him, yet her uneasiness concerning
him possessed more disquieting, more fascinating
possibilities than any of the emotions inspired by
the other man.
Van Teyl returned to her presently, a little im-
pressed.
“ Thought I knew that chap's face," he observed.
“It's Eli Hamblin - Senator Hamblin, you know.”
“ A friend and confidant of the President,” she
murmured. “A Westerner, too. I wonder what
he's doing here ... Jimmy!”
“ Hallo, Sis? "
“ You've just got to be a dear,” Pamela begged.
“Go to the caddy master, or professional, or some
one, and find out whether Mr. Lutchester met him
here by accident or whether they arrived together."
“You'll turn me into a regular sleuthhound,” he
laughed. “However, here goes."


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145
He strolled off again, and Pamela found herself
forced to become mundane and frivolous whilst she
chatted with some newly-arrived acquaintances.
It was not until some little time after her brother's
return that she found herself alone with him.
“ Well? ” she asked eagerly.
“ They arrived within a few minutes of one an-
other," Van Teyl announced. “ Senator Hamblin
bought a couple of new balls and made some in-
quiries about the course, but said nothing about
playing. Lutchester, who appears not to have
known him, came up later and asked him if he'd like
a game. That's all I could find out.”
Pamela pointed to a little cloud of dust in the
distance.
“ And there they go,” she observed, “ together.”
Van Teyl threw himself into a chair and accepted
the cup of tea which his sister handed him.
6 Well,” he inquired, “what do you make of
it?”
“ There's more in that question than you think,
James,” Pamela replied. “ All the same, I think I
shall be able to answer it in a few days.”
Another little crowd of acquaintances discovered
them, and Pamela was soon surrounded by a fresh
group of admirers. They all went out presently to
inspect the new tennis courts. Pamela and her
brother were beset with invitations.
“ You positively must stay down and dine with us,
and go home by moonlight,” Mrs. Saunders, a
lively young matron with a large country house close
by, insisted. 6 Jimmy's neglected me terribly these


CHAPTER XVIII
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


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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 English-
man, we shall solve the riddle of what our pro-
fessors 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 ar-
ranged 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


THE PAWNS COUNT
149
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 some-
thing 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


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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 ob-
served softly. “Japan, however, is under obliga-
tions — 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 states-
man 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


THE PAWNS COUNT
151
“pur factorieserlooked ones war in Eus or perish.
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 foreign-
ers 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 exhaus-


152
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tion," 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 ammuni-
tion, 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 feet 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 Cali-
fornian coast, do you suppose that America could


THE PAWNS COUNT
153
resist? With her seaboard, her fleet is contemptible.
For her wealth, her army is a farce. She has neg-
lected 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 neu-
trality, 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


· THE PAWNS COUNT
157
by that uncultured, strong-limbed race of coarse-
fibered, unimaginative materialists. There was a
call, indeed, to the soul of his country to avenge, to
make safe, the homes and lives of her colonists.
Across the seas he looked into the council chambers
of the wise men of his race. He saw the men whose
word would tell. He watched their faces turned to-
wards him, waiting; heard the beginning of the con-
flict of thoughts and minds — blind fidelity to the
cause which they had espoused, or a rougher, more
splendid, more selfish stroke for the greatness of
Japan and Japan only. “If we break our faith we
lose our honour,” one murmured. “There is no
honour save the care of my people," he heard one of
his greatest countrymen reply.
So he sat and thought, revolved in his mind argu-
ments, morals, philosophy. It was the problem
which had confronted the great Emperor, his own
ancestor, who had lived for three months on the
floor of the Temple, asking but one question of the
Silent Powers: “ Through what gate shall I lead
my nation to greatness ? ”
The senses of the man who crouched in his
curious attitude, with his eyes still piercing the
heavens, were mobile and extraordinary things. No
disturbing sounds had reached him from outside.
His isolation seemed complete and impregnable.
Yet, without turning his head, he was perfectly
conscious of the slow opening of the door. His
whole frame stiffened. He was conscious for one
bitter second of a lapse from the careful guarding
of his ways. That second passed, however, and left


158
THE PAWNS COUNT
him prepared even for danger, his brain and muscles
alike tense. He turned his head. The expression
of slow surprise, which even parted his lips and nar-
rowed his eyes, was only half assumed.
“What do you wish?” he asked.
Lutchester did not for a moment reply. He had
closed the door behind him carefully, and was looking
around the room now with evident interest. Its
bareness of furniture and decoration were note-
worthy, but on the top of the ugly chest of drawers
was a great bowl of roses, a queer little ivory figure
set in an arched frame of copper - a figure almost
sacerdotal, with its face turned towards the east —
and a little shower of rose leaves, which could
scarcely have fallen there by accident, at the foot of
the pedestal. Lutchester inclined his head gravely,
as he looked towards, it, a gesture entirely rever-
ential, almost an obeisance. Nikasti's eyes were
clouded with curiosity. He slipped down to the
ground.
“I have travelled in your country,” Lutchester
said gravely, as though in explanation. “I have
visited your temples. I may say that I have prayed
there."
“ And now?” Nikasti asked.
“I am for my country what you are for yours,"
Lutchester proceeded. “ You see, I know when it
is best to speak the truth. I am in New York
because you are in New York, and if you leave on
Saturday for Japan it may happen — of this I am
not sure — but I say that it may happen that I shall
accompany you."


THE PAWNS COUNT
159
“I shall be much honoured,” Nikasti murmured.
“ You came here,” Lutchester continued, " to meet
an emissary from Berlin. Your country, which
could listen to no official word from any one of
her official enemies, can yet, through you, learn what
is in their minds. You have seen to-day Fischer
and the Baron von Schwerin. Fischer has probably
presented to you the letter which he has brought
from Berlin. Von Schwerin has expounded further
the proposition and the price which form part of his
offer."
Nikasti's face was imperturbable, but there was
trouble in his eyes.
“ You have found your way to much knowledge,”
he muttered.
“I must find my way to more. I must know
what Germany offers you. I must know what is at
the back of your mind when you repeat this offer
in Tokio."
“ You can make, then, the unwilling speak?”
Nikasti demanded.
“Even that is amongst the possibilities,” Lut-
chester affirmed. “Strange things have been done
for the cause which such as you and I revere.”
Nikasti showed his white teeth for a moment in
a smile meant to be contemptuous.
“ It is a great riddle, this, which we toss from
one to the other," he observed. “I am the simple
valet of two gentlemen living in the hotel. You
have listened, perhaps, to fairy tales, or dreamed
them yourself, sir.”
“ It is no fairy tale,” Lutchester rejoined, “ that


160
THE PAWNS COUNT
you are Prince Nikasti, the third son of the great
Marquis Ato, that you and I met more than once
in London when you were living there some years
ago; that you travelled through our country, and
drew up so scathing an indictment of our domestic
and industrial position that, but for their clumsy
diplomacy, your country would probably have made
overtures to Germany. Ever since those days I
have wondered about you. I have wondered
whether you are with your country in her friend-
ship towards England.”
“I have no friends but my country's friends,"
Nikasti declared, “no enemies save her enemies.
But to-day those things of which you have spoken do
not concern me. I am the Japanese valet of Mr.
Fischer and Mr. Van Teyl.”
Lutchester, as though by accident, came a step
further into the room. Nikasti's eyes never left his
face. Perhaps at that moment each knew the other's
purpose, though their tongues clung to the other
things.
“Will you talk to me, Japan?” Lutchester asked
calmly. “You have listened to Germany. I am
England.”
“ If you have anything to say,” Nikasti replied,
“Baron Yung is at Washington.”
“ You and I know well,” Lutchester continued,
6 that ambassadors are but the figureheads in the
world's history. Speak to me of the things which
concern our nations, Nikasti. Tell me of the letter
you bear to the Emperor. You have nothing to lose.
Sit down and talk to me, man to man. You have


THE PAWNS COUNT
161
heard Germany. Hear England. Tell me of the
promises made to you within the last hour, and I
will show you how they can never be kept. Let us
talk of your country's future. You and I can tell
one another much.”
“ A valet knows nothing," Nikasti murmured.
Lutchester came a step nearer. Nikasti, in re-
treating, was now almost in a corner of the room.
“ Listen,” Lutchester went on, “ for many years I
have suspected that you are an enemy of my country.
That is the reason why, when our Intelligence De-
partment learnt of your mission, I chose to come
myself to meet you. And now we meet, Nikasti,
face to face, and all that you are willing to do for
your country, I am willing to do for mine, and unless
you sit down and talk this matter out with me as
man to man, you will not leave New York.”
The arm of the Japanese stole with the most per-
fect naturalness inside his coat, and Lutchester knew
then that the die was cast. The line of blue steel
flashed out too late. The hand which gripped the
strangely-shaped little knife was held as though in
a vice, and Lutchester's other arm was suddenly
thrown around the neck of his assailant, his fingers
pressed against his windpipe.
“ Drop the knife," he ordered.
It fell clattering on to the hard floor. Nikasti,
however, twisted himself almost free, took a flying
leap sideways, and seized his adversary's leg. In
another moment he came down upon the floor with a
crash. Lutchester's grip upon him, a little crueller
now, was like a band of steel.


162
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“ There are many ways of playing this game. It
is you who have chosen this one,” he said. “It's no
use, Nikasti. I know as much of your own science
as you do. You're my man now until I choose to
let you free, and before I do that I am going to read
the letter which you are taking to Japan.”
Nikasti's eyes were red with fury, but every move-
ment was torture. Lutchester held him easily with
one hand, felt over him with the other, drew the
letter from his vest, and, shaking it free from its
envelope, held it out and read it. When he had
finished, he replaced it in the envelope and pushed it
back into the other's breast pocket.
“Now," he directed, “ you can get up.”
Nikasti scrambled to his feet. There were livid
marks under his eyes. For a moment he had lost
all his vitality, he was like a beaten creature.
“ You would never have done this,” he muttered,
“ ten years ago. I grow old.”
“ So that is the letter which you are taking to
your Emperor!” Lutchester said. “You think it
worth while! You can really see the German fleet
steaming past the British Isles, out into the Atlantic,
and bombarding New York!”
Nikasti made no reply. Lutchester looked at him
for a moment thoughtfully. There was a light once
more in the beaten man's eyes — a queer, secretive
gleam. Lutchester stooped down and picked up
the knife from the floor.
“Nikasti,” he enjoined, “ listen to me, for your
country's sake. The promise contained in that
letter is barely worth the paper it is written on, so


THE PAWNS COUNT
163
long as the British fleet remains what it is. But,
apart from that, I tell you here, of my own profound
conviction — and I will prove it to you before many
days are past — Germany does not intend to keep
this promise.”
Nikasti made no reply. His face was ex-
pressionless.
“ Germany has but one idea," Lutchester con-
tinued. “ She means to play you and America off
against one another. I have found out her offer to
you. All I can say is, if you take it seriously you
are not the man I think you. Now I will tell you
what I am going to do. I am going to find out her
offer to America. I will bring that to you, and you
shall see the two side by side. Then you shall know
how much you can rely upon a country whose diplo-
macy is bred and born of lies, who cheats at every
move of the game, who makes you a deliberate offer
here which she never has the least intention of keep-
ing. Have you anything to say to me, Ni-
kasti? "
Nikasti raised his eyes for one moment.
“I have nothing to say,” he replied. “I am the
valet of Mr. Fischer and Mr. Van Teyl. These
things are not of my concern.”
Lutchester shrugged his shoulders.
“ Whatever you may be,” he concluded, “ and
however much you may resent all that has happened,
I know that you will wait. I might go direct to
Washington, but I prefer to come to you, if it re.
mains possible. Before you leave this country we
will meet again, and, when you have heard me, you


CHAPTER XX
Fischer raised his eyebrows in mild surprise to
find Nikasti waiting for him in the sitting room that
evening, with his overcoat and evening hat. He
closed the door of the bedroom from which he had
issued carefully behind him.
“ You don't need to go on with this business now
that we have had our little talk," he remonstrated.
“I cannot leave until the twentieth,” Nikasti re-
plied. “I think it best that I remain here. Your
cocktail, sir.”
Fischer accepted the glass with a good-humoured
little laugh.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose you know what you
want to do, but it seems to me unnecessary. Say,
is anything wrong with you? You seem shaken,
somehow.”
“I am quite well,” Nikasti declared gravely. “I
am very well indeed.”
Fischer stared at him searchingly from behind his
spectacles.
“ You don't look it,” he observed. “If you'll take
my advice, you'll get away from here and rest some-
where quietly for a few days. Why don't you try
one of the summer hotels on Long Island?”
Nikasti shook his head.


166 : THE PAWNS COUNT
“ Until I sail,” he decided, “I stay here. It is
better so.”
“ You know best, of course," Fischer replied.
“ Where's Mr. Van Teyl?”
“ He has gone out with his sister, sir — the young
lady in the next suite,” Nikasti announced.
Fischer sighed for a moment. Then he finished
his cocktail, drew on his gloves, and turned towards
the door.
.“ Well, good night,” he said. “ Perhaps you are
wise to stay here. Remember always what it is that
you carry about with you."
“ I shall remember,” Nikasti promised.
Fischer entered his automobile and drove to a
fashionable restaurant in the neighbourhood of Fifth
Avenue. Arrived here, he made his way to a room
on the first floor, into which he was ushered by one
of the head waiters. Von Schwerin was already
there, talking with a little company of men.
“Ah, our friend Fischer!” the latter exclaimed.
“ That makes our number complete.”
A waiter handed around cocktails. Fischer
smiled as he raised his glass to his lips.
“ It is something, at least,” he confided, “ to be
back in a country where one can speak freely. I
raise my arm. Von Schwerin and gentlemen — " To
the Fatherland!'”
They all drank fervently and with a little guttural
murmur. Von Schwerin set down his empty glass.
He was looking a little glum.
“ In many ways, my dear Fischer," he said, “ one
sympathises with that speech of yours; but the truth
a little glum. Fischer," he sathe truth


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with a little flourish Von Schwerin locked the door.
Once more he raised his glass.
“ To the Kaiser and the Fatherland!” he cried in
a voice thick with emotion.
For a moment a little flash of something almost
like spirituality lightened the gathering. They were
at least men with a purpose, and an unselfish pur-
pose.
“ Oscar Fischer," Von Schwerin said, “my
friends, all of you, you know how strenuous my
labours have been during the last year. You know
that three times the English Ambassador has almost
demanded my recall, and three times the matter has
hung in the balance. I have watched events in
Washington, not through my own but through a
thousand eyes. My fingers are on the pulse of the
country, so what I say to you needs nothing in the
way of substantiation. The truth is best. Not-
withstanding all my efforts, and the efforts of every
one of you, the great momentum of public feeling,
from California to Massachusetts, has turned slowly
towards the cause of our enemies. Washington is
hopelessly against us. The huge supplies which
leave these shores day by day for England and
France will continue. Fresh plants are being laid
down for the manufacture of weapons and ammuni-
tion to be used against our country. The hand of
diplomacy is powerless. We can struggle no longer.
Even those who favour our cause are drunk with
the joy of the golden harvest they are reaping.
This country has spoken once and for all, and its
voice is for our most hated enemy."


THE PAWNS COUNT
169
There were a variety of guttural and sympathetic
ejaculations. A dozen earnest faces turned towards
Von Schwerin.
“ Diplomacy," Von Schwerin continued, “has
failed. We come to the next step. There have been
isolated acts of self-sacrifice, splendid in themselves
but systemless. Only the day before yesterday a
great factory at Detroit was burned to the ground,
and I can assure you, gentlemen, I who know, that
a thousand bales of cloth, destined for France, lie in
a charred heap amongst the ruins. That fire was
no accident.”
There was a brief silence. Fischer nodded ap-
provingly. Von Schwerin filled his glass.
66 This,” he went on, “ was the individual act of a
brave and faithful patriot. The time has come for
us, too, to remember that we are at war. I have
striven for you with the weapons of diplomacy and
I have failed. I ask you now to face the situation
with me — to make use of the only means left to us."
No one hesitated. Possibly ruin stared them in
the face, but not one flinched. Their heads drew
closer together. They discussed the ways and
means of the new campaign.
“We must add largely to our numbers," Von
Schwerin said, “ and we had better have a fund. So
far as regards money, I take it for granted —"
There was a little chorus of fierce whispers. Five
million dollars were subscribed by men who were will-
ing, if necessary, to find fifty.
“ It is enough,” their leader assured them.
“ Much of our labours will be amongst those to whom


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money is no object. Only remember, all of you,
this. We shall be a society without a written word,
with no roll of membership, without documents or
institution, for complicity in the things which follow.
will mean ruin. You are willing to face that?"
Again that strange, passionate instinct of unanim-
ity prevailed. To all appearance it was a gather-
ing of commonplace, commercialised and burgeois,
easy-living men, but the touch of the spirit was
there. Fischer leaned a little forward..
“ In two months' time,” he said, “every factory
in America which is earning its blood money shall
be in danger. There will be a reign of terror.
Each State will operate independently and secretly."
“Our friend Fischer,” Von Schwerin told them,
" has promised to stay over here for the present to
organise this undertaking. I, alas! am bound to
remain always a little aloof, but the time may come,
and very soon, too, when I shall be a free lance.
On that day I shall throw my lot in with yours, to
the last drop of my blood and the last hour of my
liberty. Until then, trust Oscar Fischer. He has
done great deeds already. He will show you the
way to more.”
Fischer took off his spectacles and wiped them.
“Our first proceeding," he said, “ sounds para-
doxical. It must be that we cease to exist. There
can be no longer any meetings amongst us who
stand in this country for Germany. Gatherings
of this sort are finished. We meet, one or two of
us, perhaps, by accident, in the clubs and in the
streets, in our houses and perhaps in the restau-


THE PAWNS COUNT
171
rants, but the bond which unites us, and which no
human power could ever sever because it is of the
spirit, that bond from to-night is intangible. Wait,
all of you, for a message. The task given to each
shall not be too great.”
Mr. Max H. Bookam, a little black-bearded man
who had started life tailoring in a garret, and was
now a multi-millionaire, raised his glass.
“No task shall seem too great,” he muttered.
“No risk shall make us afraid. Even the exile shall
take up his burden."


CHAPTER XXI
Mr. Fischer's business later on that night led him
into unsavoury parts. He left his car at the corner
of Fourteenth Street, and, after a moment's reflec-
tion, as though to refresh his memory, he made his
way slowly eastwards. He wore an unusually
shabby overcoat, and a felt hat drawn over his eyes,
both of which garments he had concealed in the auto-
mobile. Even then, however, his appearance made
him an object of some comment. A little gang of
toughs first jostled him and then turned and followed
in his footsteps. A man came out of the shadows,
and they broke away with an oath.
“ That cop'll get his head broke some day,"
Fischer heard one of them mutter, with appropriate
adjectives.
There were others who looked curiously at him.
One man's hand he felt running over his pockets
as he pushed past him. A couple of women came
screaming down the street and seized him by the
arms. He shook himself free, and listened without
a word to their torrent of abuse. The lights here
seemed to burn more dimly. Even the flares from
the drinking dens seemed secretive, and the shadowy
places impenetrable. It was before a saloon that at
last he paused, listened for a moment to the sound
of a cracked piano inside, and entered. The place


THE PAWNS COUNT
173
was packed, and, fortunately for him, a scrap of
some interest between two villainous-looking Italians
in a distant corner was occupying the attention of
many of the patrons. A man with white, staring
face was banging at a crazy piano without a move-
ment of his body, his whole energies apparently di-
rected towards drowning the tumult of oaths and
hideous execrations which came from the two com-
batants. A drunken Irishman, rolling about on the
floor, kicked at him savagely as he passed. An un-
dersized little creature, with the face of an old man
but the figure of a boy, marked him from a distant
corner and crept stealthily towards his side.
Fischer reached the counter at last and stood there
for a moment, waiting. Two huge, rough-looking
negroes, in soiled linen clothes, were dispensing the
drinks. As one of them passed, Fischer struck the
counter with his forefinger, six or seven times, ob-
serving a particular rhythm. The negro started,
turned his heavily-lidded, repulsive eyes upon
Fischer, and nodded slightly. He handed out
the drink he had in his hand, and leaned over the
counter.
“Want the boss?” he demanded.
Fischer assented. The negro lifted the flap of the
counter and opened a trapdoor, leading apparently
into a cellar beneath.
“ Step right down,” he muttered. “Don't let the
boys catch on. Get out of that, Tim," he added
thickly to the dwarfliké figure, whose slender fingers
were suddenly nearing Fischer's neck.
The creature seemed to melt away. Fischer dived


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and descended a dozen steps or so into another bare
looking apartment, the door of which was half open.
There were three men seated at the solitary deal
table, which was almost the only article of furniture
to be seen. One, sombrely dressed in legal black,
with a pale face and fiercely inquiring eyes, half rose
to his feet as the newcomer entered. Another's hand
went to his hip pocket. The man who was sitting
between the two, however — a great red-headed
Irishman — rose to his feet and pushed them back
to their places.
“ There's no cause for alarm, now, boys,” he de-
clared. “This is a friend of mine. I won't make
you acquainted, because we're all better friends
strangers down in these parts. Hop it off, you two.
Sit down here, Mr. Stranger.”
The two men stole away. The Irishman poured
out a glassful of neat whisky and passed it to his
visitor.
“ Clients of mine,” he explained. “Tim Crooks
is in politics. Got your message, boss. What's the
figure?"
“ Two thousand!”
The Irishman whistled and looked thoughtfully
down at the table.”
“ Isn't it enough? ” Fischer asked.
“Enough? ” was the hoarse reply. “Why, there
isn't one of my toughs that wouldn't go rat-hunting
for a quarter of that. If it's any one in these parts,
twelve hours is all I want."
" It isn't!"
The Irishman's face fell.


THE PAWNS COUNT
175
“ Some swell, I suppose? Fifth Avenue way and
the swagger parts, eh? "
Fischer assented silently. His host poured him-
self out some whisky and drank it as though it were
water.
“ You see, boss," he pointed out, “it's no use
sending greenhorns out on a job like that, because
they only squeak if they're pinched, and pinched
they're sure to be; and all my regulars are what we
call in sanctuary.”
“ You mean they are hiding already?"
“ That's some truth,” was the grim admission.
“ The cops ain't going to trouble to come after 'em,
so long as they keep here, but they'd nab 'em fast
enough if they showed their noses beyond the end
of Fourteenth. Still, I'd like to oblige you, guv'nor.
I don't know who you are, and don't want, but my
boys speak fine of you. You know Ed Swindles?”
“ Not by name,” Fischer confessed.
“ He did that little job up at Detroit,” the Irish-
man went on, dropping his voice a little. “I tell
you he's a genius at handling a bomb, is Ed. Blew
that old factory into brick-ends, he did. He's in
the saloon upstairs — got his girl with him. They've
been doing a round of the dancing saloons."
“ That's all right, but what about this job?"
Fischer inquired, a little impatiently.
The Irishman glanced behind him. Then he
dropped his voice a little.
“ Look here, guv'nor," he said, “ I've some idea, if
it pans out. You've heard of the Heste case?”
“ You mean the girl who was murdered ? "


176
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“ Yes! Well, the chap that did it is within a few
feet of where we're sitting.”
Fischer took off his spectacles and rubbed them.
In the dim light his face looked more grim and
powerful than ever.
“ Isn't that a little dangerous ? ” he observed.
“ The police mean having him.”
“ You're dead right,” the Irishman replied.
“ They've got to have him, and he knows it. They'd
keep their hands off any one in these parts if they
could, but this bloke's different. He done it too
thick, and he's got the public squealing. Now if
we could get him out for long enough, he's the man
for your job. Come right along, boss."
He rose heavily to his feet, crossed the room, and
threw open the door of what was little more than a
cupboard at the further end. The place was in
darkness, but a human form sprang suddenly up-
right. His white face and glaring eyes were the
only visible objects in a shroud of darkness.
“ That's all right, kid,” the Irishman said sooth-
ingly. “No cops yet. This is a gentleman on busi-
ness. Wait till I fix a light."
He stepped back, and brought a candle from the
table at which he had been seated. Fischer helped
him light it, and by degrees the interior of the little
apartment was illuminated. Its contents were al-
most negligible — there was simply a foul piece of
rug in the corner, and a broken chair. With his
back to the wall crouched a slim, apparently young
man, with a perfectly bloodless face and black eyes
under which were blue lines. His clothes were torn


THE PAWNS COUNT 177
and covered with dust, as though he had dragged
himself about the floor, and one of his hands was
bleeding.
“ The gentleman's on business, Jake,” his host re-
peated.
“ Give me some whisky,” the young man mumbled.
The Irishman shaded his eyes.
“ Holy Moses ! why, you've finished that bottle ! ”
he exclaimed.
“It's like water," the fugitive replied in a hot
whisper. “I drink and I feel nothing; I taste
nothing — I forget nothing! Give me something
stronger.”
He tossed off without hesitation the tumbler half
full of whisky which his guardian fetched him. Then
he came out.
“ I'm sick of this,” he declared. “I'll sit at your
table. It's no use talking to me of jobs,” he went
on. “I couldn't get out of here. I made for the
docks, but they headed me off. They know where
I am. They'll have me sooner or later."
“ Yes, they'll have you right enough,” the Irish-
man assented; "but if there was any chance in the
world, this gent could give it to you. He's got a
job he wants done up amongst the swells in Fifth
Avenue, and there's money enough in it to buy Anna
herself, if you want her. Anna's our real toff down
here," he explained, turning to Fischer, “and all
the boys are crazy about her.”
Jake shook his head, unimpressed. He fixed his
eyes upon Fischer, moistened his lips a little, and
spoke in a sort of croaky whisper.


THE PAWNS COUNT
179
s I'm game! I'm on to this,” he cried fiercely.
“ You can have all there is coming to me, Sullivan,
if I get nabbed, but I'm going to take my risk. I
hate this hole! It's a rat's den.”
“ Then get you back to your cupboard, Jake,” the
Irishman enjoined. “ I've got to talk business to
the gent.”
The young man rose to his feet. He took the
bottle of whisky under his arm. His face was still
ashen, but his tone was steady. He gripped Fischer
by the arm.
“I will do your job,” he promised. “I will do it
thoroughly.”
He slouched across the floor, entered his cupboard,
and disappeared. Fischer was suddenly aware of
the moisture upon his forehead. There was some-
thing animallike, absolutely inhuman, about this
creature with whom he had made his murderous bar-
gain.
“I have no money here, of course," he reminded
his companion.
“Don't know as I blame you, guv'nor," the other
observed with a grin. “I saw my toughs lay out a
guy only the other day for flashing a smaller wad
than you'd carry. You know the rules, and I guess
I'll ring up the bank to-morrow morning at eleven
o'clock. Does that go?”
“You'll find the deposit there,” Fischer promised.
“ You'd better let me know when he's ready to take
the job on.”
The Irishman walked to the foot of the steps with
his visitor,


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“Give Joe the double knock on the trapdoor," he
directed, “ and get out of the saloon as quick as
you can. There's a Dago about there keeps our
hands full. Got anything with you?”
Fischer nodded. His hand stole out of his over-
coat pocket.
“Better give them one if they look like trouble,”
his host advised. “ They've plenty of spunk, but I
can tell you they make tracks for their holes if they
hear one of those things bark.”
“ They shall hear it fast enough, if they try to
hustle me,” Fischer observed grimly.
6 You've some pluck,” the Irishman declared, as
he watched his departing guest ascend the steps.
“ Sure, this is no place for cowards, anyway. And
good night and good luck to you! Jake will do
your job slick, if any one could.”
Fischer beat his little tattoo upon the trapdoor,
crawled through it and underneath the flap in the
counter, out into the saloon. He paused for a
moment to look around, on his way to the door.
The fight was apparently over, for every one was
standing at the counter, drinking with a swarthy-
faced man whose cheeks were stained with blood.
From a distant corner came the sound of groans.
The air seemed heavier than ever with foul tobacco
smoke. The man at the piano still thrashed out his
unmelodious chords. Some women in a corner were
pretending to dance. One or two of them looked
curiously at Fischer, but he passed out, unchal-
lenged. Even the air of the slum outside seemed
pure and fresh after the heated den he had left. He


THE PAWNS COUNT
181
reached the corner of the street in safety and stepped
quickly into his car. He threw both windows wide
open and murmured an order to the chauffeur.
Then he leaned back and closed his eyes for a mo-
ment. He was a man not overburdened with im-
agination, but it seemed to him just then that he
would never be able altogether to forget the face of
that ghastly, dehumanised creature, crouching like
some terrified wild animal in his fetid refuge.


CHAPTER XXII
Mrs. Theodore Hastings was forty-eight years old,
which her friends said was the reason why her man-
sion on Fifth Avenue was furnished and lit with the
delicate sombreness of an old Italian palace. There
was about it none of the garishness, the almost re-
splendent brilliancy associated with the abodes of
many of our neighbours. Although her masseuse
confidently assured her that she looked twenty-eight,
Mrs. Hastings preferred not to put the matter to
the test. She received her carefully selected dinner
guests in a great library with cedarwood walls, fur-
nished with almost Victorian sobriety, and illumi-
nated by myriads of hidden lights. Pamela, being a
relative, received the special consideration of an af-
fectionately bestowed embrace.
“ Pamela, my child, wasn't it splendid I heard that
you were in New York !” she exclaimed. “ Quite by
accident, too. I think you treat your relatives
shamefully.”
Her niece laughed.
“ Well, anyhow, you're the first of them I've seen
at all, and directly Jim told me he was coming to
you, I made him ring up in case you had room for
me.”
“Jimmy was a dear,” Mrs. Hastings declared,
“ and, of course, there couldn't be a time when there


THE PAWNS COUNT
183
as What is the name ather dull English you have a
wouldn't be room for you. Even now, at the last
moment, though, I haven't quite made up my mind
where to put you. Choose, dear. Will you have a
Western bishop or a rather dull Englishman?”
“ What is the name of the Englishman?” Pamela
asked, with sudden intuition.
“ Lutchester, dear. Quite a nice name, but I know
nothing about him. He brought letters to your
uncle. Rather a queer time for Englishmen to be
travelling about, we thought, but still, there he is.
Seems to have found some people he knows — and I
declare he is coming towards you!”
“ I met him in London,” Pamela whispered, " and
I never could get on with bishops.”
The dinner table was large, and arranged with
that wonderful simplicity which Mrs. Hastings had
adopted as the keynote of her New York parties.
She had taken, in fact, simplicity under her wing
and made a new thing of it. There were more
flowers than silver, and cut glass than heavy plate.
There seemed to be an almost ostentatious desire to
conceal the fact that Mr. Hastings had robbed the
American public of a good many million dollars.
“ Of course,” Pamela declared, as they took their
places, and she nodded a greeting to some friends
around the table, “fate is throwing us together in
the most unaccountable manner.”
“I accept its vagaries with resignation,” Lut-
chester replied. “Besides, it is quite time we met
again. You promised to show me New York, and I
haven't seen you for days.”
“I don't even remember the promise," Pamela


184
THE PAWNS COUNT
laughed, “ but in any case I have changed my mind.
I am not sure that you are the nice, simple-minded
person you profess to be. I begin to have doubts
about you."
“ Interest grows with mystery," Lutchester re-
marked complacently. “Let us hope that I am pro-
moted in your mind.”
“Well, I am not at all sure. Of course, I am not
an Englishman, so it is of no particular interest to
me, but if you really came over here on important
affairs, I am not sure that I approve of your playing
golf the day after your arrival.”
“ That, perhaps, was thoughtless," he admitted,
“ but one gets so short of exercise on board ship.”
“Of course,” Pamela observed tentatively, “I'd
forgive you even now if you'd only be a little more
frank with me.”
“I am prepared to be candour itself,” he assured
her.
“ Tell me,” she begged, “ the whole extent of your
mission in America ? "
He glanced around.
“If we were alone,” he replied, “ I might court in-
discretion so far as to tell you."
“ Then we will leave the answer to that question
until after dinner,” she said.
She talked to her left-hand neighbour for a few
moments, and Lutchester followed suit. They
turned to one another again, however, at the first
opportunity.
“I have conceived,” she told him," a great admira-
tion for Mr. Oscar Fischer."


THE PAWNS COUNT
185
“A very able man," Lutchester agreed.
“ He is not only that,” Pamela continued, “but he
is a man with large principles and great ideas."
“ Principles !” Lutchester murmured.
“ Of course, you don't like him,” Pamela went on,
“ and I don't wonder at it. He is thoroughly Ger-
man, isn't he ? "
“Almost prejudiced, I'm afraid,” Lutchester as-
sented.
" Don't be silly,” Pamela protested. “ Why, he's
German by birth, and although you English people
are much too pig-headed to see any good in an
enemy, I think you must admit that the way they
all hang together — Germans, I mean, all over the
world — is perfectly wonderful.”
“ There have been a few remarks of the same
sort,” Lutchester reminded her, “ about the inhabi-
tants of the British Empire — Canadians, Austra-
lians, New Zealanders, for instance.”
“ As a matter of fact,” Pamela admitted gener-
ously, “I consider that your Colonials understand
the word patriotism better than the ordinary Eng-
lishman. With them, as with the Germans, it is al-
most a passionate impulse. Your hearts may be in
the right places, but you always give one the impres-
sion of finding the whole thing rather a bore.”
“ Well, so it is,” Lutchester insisted. “Who
wants to give up a very agreeable profession and
enter upon a career of bloodshed, abandon all one's
habits, and lose most of one's friends ? No, we are
honest about that, at any rate! Germany may be
enjoying this war. We aren't.”


186
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“What was your profession? ” Pamela inquired.
“ Diplomacy,” Lutchester confided. “I intended
to become an ambassador.”
“Do you think you have the requisite gifts ? "
“ What are they?”
“ Secrecy, subtlety, caution, and highly-developed
intelligence,” she replied. “How's that?”
“ All those gifts,” he assured her, “I possess.”
She fanned herself for a moment and looked at
him.
“We are not a modest race ourselves,” she said,
“ but I think you can give us a lead. By the bye,
were you playing golf with Senator Hamblin by ac-
cident the other afternoon?”
“ You mean the old Johnny down at Baltusrol?”
he asked coolly. “I picked him up wandering about
by the professionals' shed.”
“ Did you talk politics with him ? "
“We gassed a bit about the war,” Lutchester ad-
mitted cheerfully.
Pamela laughed. She leaned a little forward.
The buzz of conversation now was insistent all around
them.
“ Of you two,” she whispered, “I prefer Fischer."
Lutchester considered the matter for some time.
“ Well, there's no accounting for tastes,” he said
presently. “I shouldn't have thought him exactly
your type.”
“He may not be,” Pamela confessed, “but at
least he has the courage to speak what is in his
mind.”
Lutchester smiled.


THE PAWNS COUNT
187
“ So Fischer has taken you into his confidence,
has he?” he murmured. “Well, now, that seems
queer to me. I should have thought your interests
would have lain the other way.”
“ As an individual?”
“ As an American."
“ I am not wholly convinced of that.”
“ Come,” he protested, “what is the use of a
friend from whom you are separated by an un-
negotiable space?”
“ What unnegotiable space?"
6 The Atlantic."
“ And why is the Atlantic unnegotiable?"
“ Because of a little affair called the British fleet,"
Lutchester pointed out.
“ There is also," she reminded him drily, “ a Ger-
man fleet, and they haven't met yet.”
“Ah! I had almost forgotten there was such a
thing,” he murmured. “Where do they keep it?"
“ You know. You aren't nearly so stupid as you
pretend to be," she said, a little impatiently. “I
should like you so much better if you would be frank
with me.”
“What about those qualifications for my ambas-
sadorial career?” he reminded her -- " Secrecy,
subtlety, caution.”
“The master of these," she whispered, rising to
her feet in response to her hostess's signal, “knows
when to abandon them —”
Lutchester changed his place to a vacant chair by
James Van Teyl's side.
“ I was going to ask you, Mr. Van Teyl,” he in-


188
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quired, “ whether your Japanese servant was alto-
gether a success? I think I shall have to get a tem-
porary servant while I am over here.”
“ Nikasti was entirely Fischer's affair," Van Teyl
replied, “ and I can't say much about him as I have
given up my share of the apartments at the Plaza.
The fellow's all right, I dare say, but we hadn't the
slightest use for a valet. The man on the floor's
good enough for any one."
"By the bye,” Lutchester inquired, “is Fischer
still in New York?”
“ No, he's in Washington," Van Teyl replied. “I
believe he's expected back to-morrow. . . . Say, can
I ask you a question?"
Lutchester almost imperceptibly drew his chair a
little closer.
“ Of course you can," he assented.
“What I want to know,” Van Teyl continued con-
fidentially, “is how you get that long run on your
cleek shots? I saw you play the sixteenth hole, and
it looked to me as though the ball were never going
to stop.”
Lutchester smiled.
“I have made a special study of that shot,” he
confided. “ Yes, I can tell you how it's done, but
it needs a lot of practice. It's done in turning over
the wrists sharply just at the moment of impact.
You get everything there is to be got into the stroke
that way, and you keep the ball low, too."
« Gee, I must try that!” Van Teyl observed, mak-
ing spasmodic movements with his wrists. “When
could we have a day down at Baltusrol?”


THE PAWNS COUNT
189
“ It will have to be next week, I'm afraid, if you
don't mind,” Lutchester replied. “I've a good
many appointments in New York, and I may have to
go to Washington myself. By the bye, I thought
our host lived there.”
“ So he does," Van Teyl assented. “ Nowadays,
though, it seems to have become the fashion for
politicians to own a house up in New York and do
some entertaining here. They're after the financial
interest, I suppose.”
“Is your uncle a keen politician?"
“ Keen as mustard,” Van Teyl answered. “So's
my aunt. She'd give her soul to have the old man
nominated for the Presidency."
“ Any chance of it?"
“ Not an earthly! He'll come a mucker, though,
some day, trying. He'd take any outside chance.
For a clever man he's the vainest thing I know.”
Lutchester smiled enigmatically as he followed the
example of the others and rose to his feet.
“ Even in America, then," he observed, “ your
great men have their weaknesses."


CHAPTER XXIII
Fischer, exactly one week after his nocturnal visit
to Fourteenth Street, hurried out of the train at the
Pennsylvania Station, almost tore the newspapers
from the news stand, glanced through them one by
one and threw them back. The attendant, open-
mouthed, ventured upon a mild protest. Fischer
threw him a dollar bill, caught up his handbag, and
made for the entrance. He was the first passenger
from the Washington Limited to reach the street and
spring into a taxi.
“ The Plaza Hotel,” he ordered. “Get along."
They arrived at the Plaza in less than ten minutes.
Mr. Fischer tipped the driver lavishly, suffered the
hall porter to take his bag, returned his greeting
mechanically, and walked with swift haste to the tape
machine. He held up the strips with shaking fingers,
dropped them again, hurried to the lift, and entered
his rooms. Nikasti was in the sitting-room, arrang-
ing some flowers. Fischer did not even stop to reply
to his reverential greeting.
“Where's Mr. Van Teyl?” he demanded.
“ Mr. Van Teyl has gone away, sir," was the calm
reply. “He left here the day before yesterday.
There is a letter.”
Fischer took no notice. He was already gripping
the telephone receiver,


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191
6982, Wall,” he said —“ an urgent call.”
He stood waiting, his face an epitome of breath-
less suspense. Soon a voice answered him.
" That the office of Neville, Brooks and Van
Teyl? ” he demanded. “Yes! Put me through to
Mr. Van Teyl. Urgent!”
Another few seconds of waiting, then once more
he bent over the instrument.
“ That you, Van Teyl? . . . Yes, Fischer speak-
ing. Oh, never mind about that! Listen. What
price are Anglo-French? . . . No, say about what?
... Ninety-five? ... Sell me a hundred thousand.
... What's that? ... What? . . . Of course it's
a big deal! Never mind that. I'm good enough,
aren't I? There'll be no rise that'll wipe out half a
million dollars. I've got that lying in cash at Gug-
genheimer's. If you need the money, I'll bring it you
in half an hour. Get out into the market and sell.
Damn you, what's it matter about news! Right!
Sorry, Jim. See you later."
Fischer put down the telephone and wiped his
forehead. Notwithstanding the fatigue in his face,
there was a glint of triumph there. He laid his
hand upon Nikasti's shoulder.
“ My friend,” he said, “ there's big proof coming
of what I said to you the other day. You'll find
that letter you carry will mean a different thing
now. There's news in the air.”
“ There has been a great battle, perhaps? " Nika-
sti asked slowly.
“ All that is to be known you will hear before
evening,” Fischer replied. “ Tell some one to send


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me some coffee. I have come through from Wash-
ington. I am tired.”
He sank a little abruptly into an easy-chair, took
off his spectacles, and leaned his head back upon
the cushions. In the sunlight his face was almost
ghastly. A queer sense of weakness had suddenly
assailed him. His mind flitted back through a vista
of sleepless nights, of strenuous days, of passions
held in leash, excitement ground down.
“I am tired,” he said. “Telephone down to the
office, Nikasti, for a doctor.”
Nikasti obeyed, and his summons was promptly
answered. The doctor who arrived was pleasantly
but ominously grave. In the middle of his exami-
nation the telephone rang. Fischer, without cere-
mony, moved to the receiver. It was Van Teyl
speaking.
“ I've sold your hundred thousand Anglo-French,"
he announced. “It's done the whole market in,
though — knocked the bottom out of it. They've
fallen a point and a half. Shall I begin to buy back
for you? You'll make a bit.”
“ Not a share," Fischer answered fiercely.
“ Wait!”
“ Have you any news you're keeping up your
sleeve? ” Van Teyl persisted.
“If I have, it's my own affair," was the curt reply,
“ and I don't tell news over the telephone, anyway.
Watch the market, and go on selling where you can.”
“ I shall do as you order,” Van Teyl replied, “ but
you're all against the general tone here. By the
bye, you got my letter?”


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193
“I haven't opened it yet,” Fischer snapped.
“ What's the matter?”
“Pamela and I have taken a little flat in Fifty-
eighth Street. Seems a little abrupt, but she didn't
want to be alone, and she hates hotels. We felt sure
you'd understand."
“ Yes, I understand,” Fischer said. “Good-by!
I'm busy."
The doctor completed his examination. When he
had finished he mentioned his fee.
“ You work too hard, and you live in an atmo-
sphere of too great strain. The natural conse-
quences are already beginning to show themselves.
If I give you medicine, it will only encourage you to
keep on wasting yourself, but you can have medicine
if you like.”
“ Send me something to take for the next fort-
night,” Fischer replied. “ After that, I'll take my
chance."
The doctor wrote a prescription and took his leave.
Fischer leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
His mind travelled back through these latter days of
his over-strenuous life. In such minutes of relaxa-
tion, few of which he permitted himself, he realised
with bitter completeness the catastrophe which had
overtaken him — him, Oscar Fischer, of all men on
earth. Into his life of grim purposes, of lofty and
yet narrow ambitions, of almost superhuman tenac-
ity, had crept the one weakening strain whose pres-
ence in other men he had always scoffed at and de-
rived. There was a new and enervating glamour
over the days, a new and hatefully powerful rival for


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all his thoughts and dreams. Ten years ago, he
reflected sadly, this might have made a different man
of him, might have unlocked the gates into another,
more peaceful and beautiful world, visions of which
had sometimes vaguely disturbed him in his cold and
selfish climb. Now it could only mean suffering.
This was the first stroke. It was the assertion
of humanity which was responsible for his pres-
ent weakness. How far might it not drag him
down?
There should be a fight, at any rate, he told him-
self, as an hour or two later he made his way down-
town. He paid several calls in the vicinity of Wall
Street, and finished up in Van Teyl's office. That
young man greeted him with a certain relief.
“ You know the tone of the market's still against
you, Fischer,” he warned him once more.
Fischer threw himself into the client's easy-chair.
The furniture in the office seemed less distinct than
usual. He was conscious of a certain haziness of
outline in everything. Van Teyl's face, even, was
shrouded in a little mist. Then he suddenly found
himself fighting fiercely, fighting for his conscious-
ness, fighting against a wave of giddiness, a deadly
sinking of the heart, a strange slackening of all his
nerve power. The young stockbroker rose hastily
to his feet.
“ Anything wrong, old fellow?” he asked anx-
iously.
“ A glass of water,” Fischer begged.
He was conscious of drinking it, vaguely conscious
that he was winning. Soon the office had regained


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195
its ordinary appearance, his pulse was beating more
regularly. He had once more the feeling of living —
of living, though in a minor key.
“A touch of liver,” he murmured. “What did
you say about the markets?”.
“ You look pretty rotten," Van Teyl remarked
sympathetically. “Shall I send out for some
brandy?”
“Not for me,” Fischer scoffed. “I don't need it.
What price are Anglo-French? ”
“ Ninety-four. You've only done them in a point,
after all, and that's nominal. I daresay I could get
ten thousand back at that.”
“Let them alone,” was the calm reply. “ I'll sell
another fifty thousand at ninety-four.”
.“ Look here,” Van Teyl said, swinging round in
his chair, “I like the business and I know you can
finance it, but are you sure that you realise what
you are doing? Every one believes Anglo-French
have touched their bottom. They've only to go back
to where they were — say five points — and you'd
lose half a million.”
Fischer smiled a little wearily.
“ That small sum in arithmetic,” he remonstrated,
“had already passed through my brain. Send in
your selling order, Jim, and come out to lunch with
me. I've come straight through from Washington
— only got in this morning.”
Van Teyl called in his clerk and gave a few or-
ders. Then he took up his hat and left the office
with his client.
“ From Washington, eh? ” he remarked curiously,


196
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as they passed into the crowded streets. “So that
accounts —”
He broke off abruptly. His companion's warning
fingers had tightened upon his arm..
“Quite right!” Van Teyl confessed. “There's
gossip enough about now, and they seem to have
tumbled to it that you're our client. The office has
been besieged this morning. Sorry, Ned, I'm busy,"
he went on, to a man who tried to catch his arm.
“ See you later, Fred. I'll be in after lunch, Mr.
Borrodaile. No, nothing fresh that I know of.”
Fischer smiled grimly.
“ Got you into a kind of hornets' nest, eh?” he
observed.
“It's been like this all the morning,” Van Teyl
told him. “ They believe I know something. Even
the newspaper men are tumbling to it. We'll lunch
up at the club. Maybe we'll get a little peace there."
They stepped into the hall of a great building,
and took one of the interminable row of lifts. A
few minutes later they were seated at a side table
in a dining room on the top floor of one of the huge
modern skyscrapers. Below them stretched a silent
panorama of the city; beyond, a picturesque view
of the river. A fresh breeze blew in through the
opened window. They were above the noise, even,
of the street cars.
“ Order me a small bottle of champagne, James,"
Fischer begged, “ and some steak.”
Van Teyl stared at his companion and laughed as
he took up the wine list.
“Well, that's the first time, Fischer, I've known


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197
you to touch a drop of anything before the evening!
I'll have a whisky and soda with you. Thank God
we're away from that inquisitive crowd for a few
minutes! Are you going to give me an idea of
what's moving? "
Fischer watched the wine being poured into his
glass.
“Not until this evening," he said. “I want you
to bring your sister and come and dine at the new
roof-garden.”
“I don't know whether Pamela has any engage-
ment,” Van Teyl began, a little dubiously.
“Please go and see," Fischer begged earnestly.
“ The telephones are just outside. Tell your sister
that I particularly wish her to accept my invitation.
Tell her that there will be news.”
Van Teyl went out to the telephone. Fischer
sipped his champagne and crumbled up his bread,
his eyes fixed a little dreamily on the grey river.
He was already conscious of the glow of the wine
in his veins. The sensation was half pleasurable,
in a sense distasteful to him. He resented this arti-
ficial humanity. He had the feeling of a man who
has stooped to be doped by a quack doctor. And
he was a little afraid.
His young companion returned triumphant.
“ Had a little trouble with Pamela," he observed,
as he resumed his place at the table. “She was
thinking of the opera with a girl friend she picked
up this morning. However, the idea of news, I
think, clinched it. We'll be at the Oriental at eight
o'clock, eh?”


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Fischer looked up from the fascinating patchwork
below. Already there was anticipation in his face.
“I am very glad,” he said. “ There will certainly
be news.”


200
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ago. I am sure that the maître d'hôtel who brought
us to our table was once at the Café de Paris.”
“Money would draw all those things from Europe
even to the Sahara,” Fischer observed, “ so long as
there were plenty of it. But millions could not buy
our dining table in the clouds.”
“A little effort of the imagination, fortunately,"
Pamela laughed, looking upwards. 6 There are
stars, but no clouds."
“I guess one of them is going to slip down to the
next table before long," Van Teyl observed, with a
little movement of his head.
They all three turned around and looked at the
wonderful bank of pink roses within a few feet of
them.
“ One of the opera women, I daresay,” the young
man continued. They are rather fond of this
place.”
Pamela leaned forward. Fischer was watching
the streets below. Only a short distance away was
a huge newspaper building, flaring with lights. The
pavements fringing it were thronged with a little
stationary crowd. A row of motor-bicycles was in
waiting. A night edition of the paper was almost
due.
“Mr. Fischer,” she asked, “what about that
news ? »
He withdrew his eyes from the street. Almost
unconsciously he straightened himself a little in his
place. There was pride in his tone. Behind his
spectacles his eyes flashed.
“ I would have told it you before,” he said, “but


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201
you would not have believed it. Soon — in a very
few moments — the news will be known. You will
see it break away in waves from that building down
there, so I will bear with your incredulity. The
German and British fleets have met, and the victory
has remained with us.”
“ With us? ” Pamela repeated.
“With Germany," Fischer corrected himself
hastily.
“Is this true?" James Van Teyl almost shouted.
“ Fischer, are you sure of what you're saying?
Why, it's incredible! ”
“ It is true," was the proud reply. “The German
Navy has been a long time proving itself. It has
done so now. To-day every German citizen is the
proudest creature breathing. He knew before that
his armies were invincible. He knows now that his
fleet is destined to make his country the mistress
of the seas. England's day is over. Her ships were
badly handled and foolishly flung into battle. She
has lost many of her finest units. Her Navy is
to-day a crippled and maimed force. The German
fleet is out in the North Sea, waiting for an enemy
who has disappeared."
" It is inconceivable,” Pamela gasped.
“I do not ask you to believe my word,” Fischer
exclaimed. “ Look !"
As though the flood gates had been suddenly
opened, the stream of patient waiters broke away
from the newspaper building below. Like little fire-
flies, the motor-bicycles were tearing down the differ-
ent thoroughfares. Boys like ants, with their bur-


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203
GREAT NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NORTH SEA.
BRITISH ADMIRALTY ADMITS SERIOUS
LOSSES.
“QUEEN MARY,” “INDEFATIGABLE,” AND
MANY FINE SHIPS LOST.
Pamela looked up from the sheet.
“ It is too wonderful,” she whispered, with a note
of awe in her tone. “I don't think that any one ever
expected this. We all believed in the British Navy."
“ There is nothing,” Fischer declared, “ that Eng-
land can do which Germany cannot do better.”
“ And America best of all,” Pamela said.
Fischer bowed.
“ That is one comparison which will never now be
made,” he declared, “ for from to-night Germany
and America will draw nearer together. The bubble
of British naval omnipotence is pricked.”
“ Meanwhile,” Van Teyl observed, putting his pa-
per away, “we are neglecting our dinner. Nothing
like a good dose of sensationalism for giving us an
appetite.”
Fischer was watching his glass being filled with
champagne. He seized it by the stem. His eyes for
a moment travelled upwards.
“I am an American citizen," he said, with a
strange fervour in his tone, “but for the moment I
am called back. And so I lift my glass and I drink
- I alone, without invitation to you others – to
those brave souls who have made of the North Sea a
holy battle-ground.”
He drained his glass and set it down empty.


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Pamela watched him as though fascinated. For a
single moment she was conscious of a queer sensa-
tion of personal pity for some shadowy and absent
friend, of something almost like a lump in her throat,
a strange instinct of antagonism towards the man
by her side so enveloped in beatific satisfaction —
then she frowned when she realised that she had been
thinking of Lutchester, that her first impulse had
been one of sympathy for him. The moment passed.
The service of dinner was pressed more insistently
upon them. James Van Teyl, who had been leaning
back in his chair, talking to one of the maîtres
d'hôtel, dismissed him with a little nod and entrusted
them with a confidence.
“ Say, do you know who's coming to the next
table? ” he exclaimed. “Sonia !”
They were all interested.
6 You won't mind? ” Fischer asked diffidently.
“ In a restaurant, how absurd!” Pamela laughed.
“Why, I'm dying to see her. I wonder how it is
that some of these greatest singers in the world
lead such extraordinary lives that people can never
know anything of them.”
“ Society is tolerant enough nowadays," her
brother observed, “ but Sonia won't give them even
a decent chance to wink at her eccentricities. She
crossed, you know, on the Prince Doronda’s yacht,
for fear they wouldn't let her land.”
“ Here she comes,” Pamela whispered.
There was a moment's spellbound silence. Two
maîtres d'hôtel were hurrying in front. A pathway
from the lift had been cleared as though for a royal


THE PAWNS COUNT
205
personage. Sonia, in white from head to foot, a
dream of white lace and chinchilla, with a Russian
crown of pearls in her glossy black hair, and a rope
of pearls around her neck, came like a waxen figure,
with scarlet lips and flashing eyes, towards her table.
And behind her — Lutchester! Pamela felt her fin-
gers gripping the tablecloth. Her first impulse, cu-
riously enough, was one of wild fury with herself for
that single instant's pity. Her face grew cold and
hard. She felt herself sitting a little more upright.
Her eyes remained fixed upon the newcomers.
Lutchester's behaviour was admirable. His
glance swept their little table without even a shadow
of interest. He ignored with passive unconcern the
mistake of Van Teyl's attempted greeting. He
looked through Fischer as though he had been a
ghost. He stood by Sonia's side while she seated
herself, and listened with courteous pleasure to her
excited admiration of the flowers and the wonderful
vista. Then he took his own place. In his right
hand he was carrying an evening paper with its
flaming headlines.
“ That,” Fischer pronounced, struggling to keep
the joy from his tone, “is very British and very
magnificent!”
Pamela had imperfect recollections of the rest of
the evening. She remembered that she was more
than usually gay throughout dinner-time, but that
she was the first to jump at the idea of a hurried
departure and a visit to a cabaret. Every now
and then she caught a glimpse of Sonia's face, saw


CHAPTER XXV
Sonia had the air of one steeped in an almost
ecstatic content. On her return from the roof gar-
den she had exchanged her wonderful gown for a
white silk negligée, and her headdress of pearls for
a quaint little cap. She was stretched upon a sofa
drawn before the wide-flung French windows of her
little sitting-room at the Ritz-Carlton, a salon dec-
orated in pink and white, and filled almost to over-
flowing with the roses which she loved. By her side,
in an easy chair which she had pressed him to draw
up to her couch, sat Lutchester.
“ This,” she murmured, “ is one of the evenings
which I adore. I have no work, no engagements —
just one friend with whom to talk. My fine clothes
have done. I am myself,” she added, stretching out
her arms. “I have my cigarettes, my iced sherbet,
and the lights and murmur of the city there below to
soothe me. And you to talk with me, my friend.
What are you thinking of me — that I am a little
animal who loves comfort too much, eh?”
Lutchester smiled.
“ We all love comfort,” he replied. “ Some of us
are franker than others about it.”
She made a little grimace.
“ Comfort! It is my own word, but what a word!


210
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It is luxury I worship — luxury - and a friend. Is
that, perhaps, another word too slight, eh?”
He met the provocative gleam of her eyes with a
smile of amusement.
“ You are just the same child, Sonia,” he re-
marked. “ Neither climate nor country, nor the few
passing years, can change you."
“ It is you who have grown older and sterner,”
she pouted. “It is you who have lost the gift of
living to-day as though to-morrow were not. There
was a time, was there not, John, when you did not
care to sit always so far away?”
She laid her hand — ringless, over-manicured, but
delicately white — upon his. He smoothed it gently.
“ You see, Sonia,” he sighed, “ troubles have come
that harden the hearts even of the gayest of us."
She frowned.
“ You are not going to remind me " she began.
“ If I reminded you of anything, Sonia,” he inter-
rupted, " I would remind you that you are a French-
woman."
She stretched out her hand restlessly and took one
of the Russian cigarettes from a bowl by her
side,
“You are not, by any chance, going to talk seri-
ously, dear John? ”
“I am,” he assured her, “ very seriously."
“Oh, la, la!” she laughed. “You, my dear, gay
companion, you who have shaken the bells all your
life, you are going to talk seriously! And to-night,
when we meet again after so long. Ah, well, why
should I be surprised?" she went on, with a pout.


THE PAWNS COUNT
2II
6 You have changed. When one looks into your
face, one sees the difference. But to me, of all peo-
ple in the world! Why talk seriously to me! I am
just Sonia, the gipsy nightingale. I know nothing
of serious things.”
“ You carry one very serious secret in your heart,"
he told her gravely, “ one little pain which must
sometimes stab you. You are a Frenchwoman, and
yet --"
Lutchester paused for a moment. Sonia, too,
seemed suddenly to have awakened into a state of
tense and vivid emotion. The cigarette burned away
between her fingers. Her great eyes were fixed upon
Lutchester. There was something almost like fear
in their questioning depths.
“ Finish! Finish!” she insisted. “ Continue !"
“ And yet,” he went on, “ your very dear friend,
the friend for whose sake you are here in America,
is your country's enemy."
She raised herself a little upon the couch.
“ That is not true,” she declared furiously.
“ Maurice loves France. His heart aches for the
misery that has come upon her. It is your country
only which he hates. If France had but possessed
the courage to stand by herself, to resist when Eng-
land forced her friendship upon her, none of this
tragedy would ever have happened. Maurice has
told me so himself. France could have peace to-
day, peace at her own price.”
“ There is no peace which would leave France with
a soul, save the peace which follows victory," Lut-
chester replied sternly.


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She crushed her cigarette nervously in her fingers,
threw it away, and lit another.
“I will not talk of these things with you,” she
cried. “It was not for this that you sought me out,
eh? Tell me at once? Were these the thoughts
you had in your mind when you sent your little note?
— when you chose to show yourself once more in my
life?"
For the first time of his own accord he drew his
chair a little nearer to hers. He took her hand.
She gave him both unresistingly.
“ Listen, dear Sonia," he said, “it is true that I
am a changed man. I am older than when we met
last, and there are the other things. You remem-
ber the Château d'Albert?"
“Of course!” she murmured. “And the young
Duc d'Albert's wonderful house party. We all
motored there from Paris. You and I were together!
You have forgotten that, eh?”
“ I lay in that orchard for two days," he went on
grimly, “with a hole in my side and one leg pretty
nearly done for. I saw things I can never forget,
in those days, Sonia. D'Albert himself was killed.
It was in that first mad rush. Of the Château there
remains but four blackened walls.”
“ Pauvre enfant!” she murmured. “But you are
well and strong again now, is it not so? You will
not fight again, eh? You were never a soldier, dear
friend.”
“ Just now," he confided, “I have other work to
do. It is that other work which has brought me to
America."


THE PAWNS COUNT
213
She drew him a little closer to her. Her eyes ques-
tioned him.
“ There is, perhaps, now," she asked, “ a woman
in your life?"
“ There is,” he admitted.
She made a grimace.
“ But how clumsy to tell me, even though I asked,"
she exclaimed. “What is she like? . . . But no,
I do not wish to hear of her! If she is all the world
to you, why did you send me that little note? Why
are you here?”
“ Because we were once dear friends, Sonia,” he
said, “because I wish to save you from great
trouble.”
She shrank from him a little fearfully.
“What do you mean? "
“ Sonia,” he continued, with a note of sternness in
his tone,“ during the last two years you have gone
back and forth between New York and Paris, six
times. I do not think that you can make that jour-
ney again.”
She was standing now, with one hand gripping
the edge of the table.
“ John! ... John!... What do you mean?"
she demanded, and this time her own voice was hard.
“I mean," he said, “ that when you leave here
for Paris you will be watched day and night. The
moment you set foot upon French soil you will be
arrested and searched. If anything is found upon
you, such as a message from your friend in Wash-
ington — well, you know what it would mean. Can't
you see, you foolish child, the risk you have been


THE PAWNS COUNT
115
fered! This shall end it. See, I have written
Good-by!' He will understand. If he comes, I
will not see him. Ring the bell quickly. There
it is finished ! ”
A page-boy appeared, and she handed him the
telegram. Then she turned a little pathetically to
Lutchester.
“ Maurice was foolish — very often foolish," she
went on unsteadily, “but he has loved me, and a
woman loves love so much. Now I shall be lonely.
And yet, there is a great weight gone from my mind.
Always I wondered about those letters. You will
be my friend, John? You will not leave me all
alone?”
He patted her hand.
“Dear Sonia,” he whispered, “ solitude is not the
worst thing one has to bear, these days. Try and
remember, won't you, that all the men who might
have loved you are fighting for your country, one
way or another.”
“It is all so sad," she faltered," and you – you
are so stern and changed.”
“ It is with me only as it is with the whole world,”
he told her. “ To-night, though, you have relieved
me of one anxiety."
Her eyes once more were for a moment frightened.
“ There was danger for poor little me?"
He nodded.
" It is past," he assured her.
“ And it is you who have saved me,” she mur-
mured. " Ah, Mr. John,” she added, as she walked
with him to the door, “ if ever there comes to me


216
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a lover, not for the days only but pour la vie, I hope
that he may be an Englishman like you, whom all the
world trusts."
He laughed and raised her fingers to his lips.
6 Over-faithful, you called us once," he reminded
her.
“But that was when I was a child,” she said,
6 and in days like these we are children no longer."


218
THE PAWNS COUNT
thoughts of these away from his mind. What she
might be thinking of him at the moment he ignored.
He was content to let his thoughts rest upon her,
to walk through the moonlit street, his brain and
heart revelling in that subtle facility of the im-
agination which brought her so easily to his pres-
ence. It was such a vividly real Pamela, too, who
spoke and walked and moved by his side. His mem-
ory failed him nowhere, followed faithfully the kalei-
doscopic changes in her face and tone, showed him
even that long, grateful, searching glance when their
eyes had met in Von Teyl's sitting-room. There had
been times when she had shown clearly enough that
she was anxious to understand, anxious to believe
in him. He clung to the memory of these; pushed
into the background that faint impression he had had
of her at the roof-garden, serene and proud, yet with
a faint look of something like pain in her startled
eyes.
A large limousine passed him slowly, crawling up
Fifth Avenue. Lutchester, with all his gifts of ob-
servation dormant, took no notice of its occupant,
who leaned forward, raised the speaking-tube to his
lips, and talked for a moment to his chauffeur. The
car glided round a side street and came to a stand-
still against the curb. Its solitary passenger
stepped quietly out and entered a restaurant. The
chauffeur backed the car a little, slipped from his
place, and followed Lutchester.
By chance the little throng of people here became
thicker for a few moments and then ceased. Lut-
chester drew a little sigh of relief as he saw before


THE PAWNS COUNT
219
him almost an empty pavement. Then, just as he
was relapsing once more into thought, some part
of his subconscious instinct suddenly leaped into
warning life. Without any actual perception of
what it might mean, he felt the thrill of imminent
danger, connected it with that soft footfall behind
him, and swung round in time to seize a deadly
uplifted hand which seemed to end in a shimmer of
dull steel. His assailant flung himself upon Lut-
chester with the lithe ferocity of a cat, clinging to
his body, twisting and turning his arm to wrest it
free. It was a matter of seconds only before his
intended victim, with a fierce backward twist, broke
the man's wrist and, wrenching himself free from
the knees which clung around him, flung him forcibly
against the railings which bordered the pavement.
Lutchester paused for a moment to recover his breath
and looked around. A man from the other side of
the street was running towards them, but no one
else seemed to have noticed the struggle which had
begun and finished in less than thirty seconds. The
man, who was half-way across the thoroughfare, sud-
denly stopped short. He shouted a warning to Lut-
chester, who swung around. His late assailant, who
had been lying motionless, had raised himself slightly,
with a revolver clenched in his left hand. Lutches-
ter's spring on one side saved his life, for the bullet
passed so close to his cheek that he felt the rush and
heat of the air. The man in the center of the road
was busy shouting an alarm vociferously, and other
people on both sides of the thoroughfare were run-
ning up. Lutchester's eyes now never left the dark,


220
THE PAWNS COUNT
doubled-up figure upon the pavement. His whole
body was tense. He was prepared at the slightest
movement to spring in upon his would-be murderer.
The man's eyes seemed to be burning in his white
face. He called out to Lutchester hoarsely.
“ Don't move or I shall shoot!”
He looked up and down the street. One of the
nearest of the hastening figures was a policeman.
He turned the revolver against his own temple and
pulled the trigger. . .
Lutchester and a policeman walked slowly back
along Fifth Avenue. Behind them, a little crowd
was still gathered around the spot from which the
body of the dead man had already been removed in
an ambulance.
“I really remember nothing," Lutchester told his
companion, “ until I heard the footsteps behind me,
and, turning round, saw the knife. This is simply
an impression of mine — that he might have de-
scended from the car which passed me and stopped
just round the corner of that street.”
“ He's a chauffeur, right enough,” the inspector
remarked. “It don't seem to have been a chance
job, either. Looks as though he meant doing you
in. Got any enemies?”
“None that I know of,” Lutchester answered
cautiously. “Why, the car's there still,” he added,
as they reached the corner.
“ And no chauffeur," the other muttered.
The officer searched the car and drew out a license
from the flap pocket. The commissionaire from the
restaurant approached them.


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“ That so? ” the officer remarked, with a grunt.
“Get any references with him?"
“ As a matter of fact, I did not,” Fischer admitted
frankly. “I discharged my chauffeur yesterday, at
a moment's notice, and this man happened to call
just as I was wanting the car out this afternoon.
He promised to bring me references to-morrow from
Mr. Gould and others. I engaged him on that un-
derstanding. He told me that his name was Kay —
Robert Kay. That is all that I know about him,
except that he was an excellent driver. I am ex-
ceedingly sorry Mr. Lutchester,” he went on, turn-
ing towards him, " that this should have happened.”
“ So you two know one another, eh?” the officer
observed.
“Oh, yes, we know one another!” Lutchester ad-
mitted drily.
“ I shall have to ask you both for your names and
addresses,” the official continued. “I think I won't
ask you any more questions at present. Seems to
me headquarters had better take this on."
“I shall be quite at your service," Lutchester
promised.
The man made a few more notes, saluted, and took
his leave. Fischer and Lutchester remained for a
moment upon the pavement.
“It is a dangerous custom,” Lutchester remarked,
“ to take a servant without a reference."
“ It will be a warning to me for the remainder of
my life,” Fischer declared.
“I, too, have learnt something," Lutchester con-
cluded, as he turned away,


CHAPTER XXVII
Fischer, as he waited for Pamela the following
afternoon in the sitting-room of her flat on Fifty-
eighth Street, felt that although the practical fu-
ture of his life might be decided in other places, it
was here that its real climax would be reached.
Pamela herself was to pronounce sentence upon him.
He was feeling scarcely at his best. An examination
in the courthouse, which he had imagined would last
only a few minutes, had been protracted throughout
the afternoon. The district attorney had asked him
a great many questions, some rather awkward ones,
and the inquiry itself had been almost grudgingly
adjourned for a few hours. And here, in Pamela's
sitting-room, the first things which caught his eye
were the headlines of one of the afternoon papers:
WESTERN MILLIONAIRE ENGAGES
THE GIRL HESTE'S MURDERER
AS CHAUFFEUR!
ATTEMPTED MURDER AND SUICIDE
IN FIFTH AVENUE
LAST NIGHT.
Fischer pushed the newspaper impatiently away,
and, in the act of doing so, the door was opened


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and Pamela entered. She came towards him with
outstretched hand.
“I see you are looking at the account of your
misdeeds," she said, as she seated herself behind a
tea tray. “Will you tell me why a cautious man
like you engages, without reference, a chauffeur who
turns out to be a murderer?"
Fischer frowned irritably.
“For four hours," he complained, “ several
lawyers and a most inquisitive police captain have
been asking me the same question in a hundred dif-
ferent ways. I engaged the man because I needed a
chauffeur badly. He was to have brought his refer-
ences this morning. I was only trusting him for a
matter of a few hours."
“ And during those few hours," she observed," he
seems to have developed a violent antipathy to Mr.
Lutchester.”
“I do not understand the affair at all,” Mr.
Fischer declared," and, if I may say so, I am a little
weary of it. I came here to discuss another matter
altogether."
She leaned back in her place.
“What have you come to discuss, Mr. Fischer?"
« That depends so much upon you,” he replied.
“ If you give me any encouragement, I can put
before you a great proposition. If your prejudices,
however, remain as I think they always have been,
on the side of England, why then I can do nothing."
“If I counted for anything," Pamela said, “I
mean to say if it mattered to any one what my
attitude was, I would start by admitting that my


THE PAWNS COUNT
225
sympathies are somewhat on the side of the Allies.
On the other hand, my sympathies amount to noth-
ing at all compared with my interest in the welfare
of the United States. I am perfectly selfish in that
respect.”
“ Then you have an open mind to hear what I
have to say,” Fischer remarked. “I am glad of it.
You encourage me to proceed.”
“ That is all very well,” Pamela said, stirring her
tea, “ but I cannot help asking once more why you
come to me at all? What have I to do with any
proposition you may have to make?”
“ Just this,” he explained. “I have a serious and
authentic proposition to make to the American Gov-
ernment. I cannot make it officially — although it
comes from the highest of all sources — for the
most obvious reasons. It may seem better worth
listening to to-day, perhaps, than a week ago, so
far as you are concerned. That is because you be-
lieved in British invincibility upon the sea. I never
did.”
“Go on, please,” Pamela begged. “I am still
waiting to realise my position in all this.”
“I should like,” Fischer declared, “my proposi-
tion to reach the President through Senator Hast-
ings, and Senator Hastings is your uncle.”
“I see,” Pamela murmured.
“ My offer itself is a very simple one,” Fischer
continued. “Your secret service is so bad that you
probably know nothing of what is happening. Ours,
on the other hand, is still marvellously good, and
what I am going to tell you is surely the truth.


226
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Japan is accumulating great wealth. She is saving
her ships and men for one purpose, and one pur-
pose only, Europe could not bribe her highly
enough to take a more active part in this war. Her
price was one which could not be paid. She de-
manded a free hand with the United States."
“ This,” Pamela admitted, “is quite interesting,
but it is entirely in the realms of conjecture, is it
not? "
“ Not wholly,” Fischer insisted. “At the proper
time I should be prepared to bring you evidence that
tentative proposals were made by Japan to both
England and France, asking what would be their
attitude, should she provide them with half a million
men and undertake transport, if at the conclusion of
the war she desired a settlement with the United
States. The answer from France and England was
the same — that they could not countenance an
inimical attitude towards the States."
“ You are bound to admit, then," Pamela re-
marked, “ that England played the game here."
“ The bribe was not big enough,” Fischer replied
drily. “ England would sell her soul, but not for a
mess of pottage. To proceed, however, Japan has
practically kept out of the war. She is enjoying a
prosperity never known before, and for every million
pounds' worth of munitions she exports to Russia,
she puts calmly on one side twenty-five per cent. to
accumulate for her own use. At the conclusion of
the war she will be in a position she has never oc-
cupied before, and while the rest of the world is still
gasping, she will proceed to carry out what has been


THE PAWNS COUNT
227
the dream of her life — the invasion of your Western
States."
“ I admit that this is plausible,” Pamela confessed,
“ but you are only pointing out a very obvious
danger, for which I imagine that we are already
fairly well prepared.”
“ Believe me,” Fischer said earnestly, “ you are
not. It is this fact which makes the whole situation
so vital to you. Later on in our negotiations, I will
show you proof of your danger. Meanwhile, let me
proceed to the offer which I am empowered to make,
which comes direct from the one person in Germany
whose word is unshakable.”
Pamela changed her position a little, as though to
escape from the sunlight which was finding its way
underneath the broad blinds. Her eyes were fixed
upon her visitor. She listened intently to every
word he had to say. Despite some vague feeling of
mistrust, which she acknowledged to herself might
well have been prejudiced, she found the situation
interesting, even stimulating. Her few excursions
into the world of high politics had never brought her
into such a position as this. She felt both flattered
and interested — attracted, too, in some nameless
way, by the man's personality, his persistence, his
daring, his whole-heartedness. The situation was
instinct with interest to her.
.“ But why make it to me?" she murmured.
“ You are to be my delegate,” he answered.
“ Take the substance of what I say to you, to your
uncle. Try, for your country's sake, to interest him
in it. The offer which I make shall save you a vast


228
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amount of sacrifice. It shall save your dislocating
the industries of the country and sowing the seeds of
a disturbing and yet inadequate militarism. I offer
you, in short, a German alliance against Japan.”
“ The value of that offer," Pamela remarked
thoughtfully, “would depend rather upon the issue
of the present war, wouldn't it?”
Fischer's face darkened. His tone was almost
irritable.
“ That is already preordained,” he said firmly.
“ You see, I will be quite frank with you. Germany
has lost her chance of sweeping and complete vic-
tory. The result of the war will be a return to the
status-quo-ante. Yet, believe me, Germany will be
strong enough to settle some of the debts she owes,
and the debt to Japan is one of these.”
“ Still, there is the practical question of getting
men and ships over from Germany to America,"
Pamela persisted.
“ It is already solved,” was the swift reply. “ At
the proper time I will show you and prove how it
can be done. At present, not one word can pass
my lips. It is one of the secrets on which the future
of Germany depends.”
“ And the price? ” Pamela asked.
“ That America adopts our view as to the high
seas traffic,” Fischer replied. “ This would mean
the stopping of all supplies, munitions and ammu-
nition from America to England. We offer you an
alliance. We ask only for your real and actual
neutrality for the remainder of the war. We offer a
great and substantial advantage, a safeguard for


THE PAWNS COUNT
229
your country's future, in return for what? Simply
that America will pursue the course of honour and
integrity to all nations."
“ America,” Pamela declared, “has never failed in
this."
Fischer shrugged his shoulders.
“ There is more than one point of view," he re-
minded her. “Will you take my message with you
to Washington to-morrow? ”
“ Yes,” Pamela promised, “I will do that. The
rest, of course, remains with others. I do not myself
go so far, even,” she added, “ as to declare myself
in sympathy with you.”
“ And yet,” he insisted, with swift violence, “ it is
your sympathy which I desire more than anything
in the world — your sympathy, your help, your com-
panionship; a little — a very little at first of your
love."
“ I am afraid that I am not a very satisfactory
person from that point of view," Pamela confessed.
“I have a great sympathy with every man who is
really out for the great things, but so far as you are
concerned, Mr. Fischer, or any one else,” she went
on, after a moment's hesitation, “ I have no personal
feeling.”
66 That shall come,” he declared.
“ Then please wait a little time before you talk
to me again like this,” she said, rising and hold-
ing out her hand. “ At present there is no sign
of it.”
“ There is so much that I could offer you,” he
pleaded, gripping the hand which she had given him


232
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dozen perspiring young men were called into his serv-
ice. In the end Van Teyl made out a note and
handed it to him.
“I could have done better for you yesterday," he
observed. “ The market is strengthening all the
time. There are probably some rumours."
A boy went by along the pavement outside waving
a handful of papers. His cry floated in through the
open window:
REPORTED LOSS OF MANY MORE GERMAN
BATTLESHIPS.
BRITISH CLAIM VICTORY.
Van Teyl grinned.
“ You got here just in time,” he murmured, “but
I suppose you knew all about this.”
“I have known since three o'clock,” Lutchester
replied, “ that all the reports of a German victory
were false. You will find, when the truth is known,
that the German losses were greater than the
British.”
“ Then if that's so," Van Teyl remarked, “ I've
got one client who'll lose a hatful which you ought
to make. Coming up town?”
“I should like, if I may,” Lutchester said, “ to be
permitted to pay my respects to your sister.”
“Why, that's fine!” Van Teyl exclaimed uncon-
vincingly. “We'll take the subway up."
They left the office and plunged into the indescrib-
able horrors of their journey. When they stepped
out into the sunlit street in another atmosphere,


THE PAWNS COUNT
233
Van Teyl laid his hand upon his companion's arm in
friendly fashion.
“Say, Lutchester," he began, “ I don't know that
you are going to find Pamela exactly all that she
might be in the way of amiability and so on. I know
these things are done on the other side, but here
it's considered trying your friends pretty high to
take a lady of Sonia's reputation where you are
likely to meet your friends. No offence, eh?”
“ Certainly not,” Lutchester replied. “I was
sorry, of course, to see you last night. On the other
hand, Sonia is an old friend, and my dinner with her
had an object. I think I could explain it to your
sister."
“I don't know that I should try,” Van Teyl ad-
vised. “For all her cosmopolitanism, Pamela has
some quaint ideas. However, I thought I'd warn
you, in case she's a bit awkward.”
Pamela, however, had no idea of being awkward.
She welcomed Lutchester with a very sweet smile,
and gave him the tips of her fingers.
“ I was wondering whether we should see you again
before we went,” she said. “We are leaving for
Washington to-morrow.”
“By the three o'clock train, I hope?” he ven-
tured.
She raised her eyebrows.
“ Why, are you going, too?”
“I hope so.”
“I should have thought most of the munition
works,” she observed, “ were further north."
“ They are,” he acknowledged, “but I have busi-


234
THE PAWNS COUNT
ness in Washington. By the bye, will you both come
out and dine with me to-night?”
Van Teyl glanced at his sister. She shook her
head.
“I am so sorry,” she said, “but we are engaged.
Perhaps we shall see something of you in Washing-
ton."
“I have no doubt you will,” Lutchester replied.
“ All the same," he added, “ it would give me very
great pleasure to entertain you at dinner this eve-
ning."
" Why particularly this evening? " she asked.
He looked at her with a queer directness, and
Pamela felt certain very excellent resolutions crum-
bling. She suffered her brother to leave the room
without a word.
“ Because,” he explained, " I think you will find a
different atmosphere everywhere. There will be
news in the evening papers.”
“ News ? ” she repeated eagerly. “You know I
am always interested in that.”
“ The reports of a German naval victory were not
only exaggerated,” Lutchester said calmly; " they
were untrue. Our own official announcement was
clumsy and tactless, but you will find it amplified
and explained to-night.”
Pamela listened with an interest which bordered
upon excitement.
“ You are sure?” she exclaimed.
“ Absolutely," he replied. “My notification is
official.”
“ So you think if we dined with you, the atmo-


238
THE PAWNS COUNT
pose he will get away from the police court some-
time or other.”
“But anyway,” he protested, “ you've heard all
that Mr. Fischer has to say. Now I, on the other
hand, haven't shown you my hand yet.”
“ Heard all that Mr. Fischer has to say?" she
repeated.
“ Certainly! Wasn't he here for several hours
with you this afternoon? Didn't he promise you an
alliance with Germany against Japan, if you could
persuade certain people at Washington to change
their tone and attitude towards the export of muni-
tions? "
“ This," she declared, trying to keep a certain
agitation from her tone, “ is mere bluff.”
Lutchester was suddenly very serious indeed.
“ Listen,” he said, “I can prove to you, if you will,
that it is not bluff. I can prove to you that I really
know something of what I am talking about."
- “ There is nothing I should like better," she
declared.
“To begin with then," Lutchester said, “ the
pocketbook which Nikasti is supposed to have stolen
from your room, the pocketbook of young Sandy
Graham, which Mr. Fischer has sent to Germany,
does not contain the formula of the new explosive, or
any other formula that amounts to anything."
“ Just how do you know that? ” she demanded.
“ To continue," Lutchester said, playing with a
little ornament upon the mantelpiece, “ you have an
appointment — within half an hour, I believe — with
Mr. Paul Haskall, who is a specialist in explosives,


CHAPTER XXIX
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 to-
wards 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 ear-
nestness.
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 maître d'hôtel, and she approved of his


242
THE PAWNS COUNT
table. It was set almost in an alcove, and was par-
tially 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 dis-
turbed.”
“ 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 Eng-
land,” 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 in-
formation. 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


THE PAWNS COUNT .243
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 sus-
pect 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 cafés 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


244
THE PAWNS COUNT
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,
16 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 de-
clared. “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 prob-
ably be allowed to visit him once every fourteen days
in care of a warder."
“ Spite!” Pamela exclaimed, with a suspicious lit-
tle 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 coun-
tries, each behind the other's back, is a little more
than Machiavellian, isn't he?"
6 Is that true of Mr. Fischer?”
“ Absolutely," Lutchester assured her. “He is
over here for the purpose of somehow or other mak-
ing it known informally in Washington that Ger-


THE PAWNS COUNT
245
many would be willing to pledge herself to an alliance
with America against Japan, after the war, if Amer-
ica will alter her views as to the export of muni-
tions 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 the 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 broth-
er'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


246
THE PAWNS COUNT
nameless person, promising him, if Japan will cease
the export of munitions to Russia, the aid of Ger-
many in her impending campaign against Amer-
ica.”
“An autograph letter, did you say? ” Pamela al-
most gasped.
“An autograph letter,” Lutchester repeated
firmly. “Now don't you agree with me that Fisch-
er'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 unsuc-
cessful, 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.”


THE PAWNS COUNT
247
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,” Lut-
chester assured her solemnly.
She looked at him with something almost like won-
der 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


THE PAWNS COUNT
249
you."
“Well, you seem to have done that pretty effectu-
ally!”
“ Also,” he went on calmly, “ to keep an eye upon
“ Professionally?"
“ You ask me to give away too many secrets,” he
whispered, leaning towards her.
She made a little grimace.
66 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.


252
THE PAWNS COUNT
Mr. Fischer, I'm afraid he'll break off our prospec-
tive alliance.”
Lutchester smiled.
“ Prospective is the only word to use," he ob-
served. “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 in-
terfere.”


CHAPTER XXX
Fischer had by no means the appearance of a
discomfited man that evening, when some time later
Pamela and Lutchester approached the little group
of which he seemed, somehow, to have become the
central figure. It was a small party, but, in its way,
a distinguished one. Pamela's aunt was a member
of an historic American family, and a woman of
great social position, not only in New York but in
Washington itself. Of the remaining guests, one
was a financial magnate of world-wide fame, and the
other, Senator Joyce, a politician of such eminence
that his name was freely mentioned as a possible
future president. Mrs. Hastings greeted Pamela
and her escort without enthusiasm.
“My dear child,” she exclaimed, “ how extraordi-
nary to find you here!”
“ Is it?" Pamela observed indifferently. “You
know Mr. Lutchester, don't you, aunt?”
Mrs. Hastings remembered her late dinner guest,
but her recognition was icy and barely polite. She
turned away at once and resumed her conversation
with Fischer. Lutchester was not introduced to
either of the other members of the party. He laid
his hand on the back of an empty chair and turned
it round for Pamela, but she stopped him with a


254
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word of thanks. Something had gone from her own
naturally pleasant tone. She held her hand higher,
even, than her aunt's, as she turned a little insistently
towards her.
“ So sorry, aunt," she announced," but we are go-
ing now. Good night!”
Mrs. Hastings disapproved.
“ We have seen nothing of you yet, Pamela," she
said stiffly. “You had better stay with us and we
will drop you on our way home.”
Pamela shook her head.
“I am coming with you to-morrow, you know,"
she reminded her aunt. “ To-night I am Mr. Lut-
chester's guest and he will see me home.”
Mrs. Hastings drew her niece a little closer to her.
“ Is this part of your European manners,
Pamela ? ” she whispered, “ that you dine alone in a
resturant with an acquaintance? Let me tell you
frankly that I dislike the idea most heartily. My
chaperonage is always at your service, and any girl
of your age in America would be delighted to avail
herself of it.”
“ It is very kind of you, aunt," Pamela replied,
“but in a general way I finished with chaperons long
ago.”
“ Where is Jimmy?” Mrs. Hastings inquired.
“ He was coming with us to-night," Pamela ex-
plained, “but I asked him particularly to stay away.
I have seen so little of Mr. Lutchester since he ar-
rived, and I want to talk to him.”
The financial magnate awoke from a comatose in-
ertia and suddenly gripped Lutchester by the hand.


336
THE PAWNS COUNT
the most loyal and long-suffering persons I know.
I cannot say as much for the English people who are
living over here. And as to fairy stories –”
Pamela intervened, turning towards Fischer with
a little laugh.
“Oh, he can't even deny those! What about the
great German victory in the North Sea, Mr.
Fischer? Do you happen to have seen the latest
telegrams ? "
“Our first reports were perhaps a little too glow-
ing,” Mr. Fischer acknowledged. “ That, under the
circumstances, is, I think, only natural. But the
facts remain that the invincible English and the un-
tried German fleets have met, to the advantage of
the German.”
Pamela shook her head.
“I cannot even allow that,” she objected. “The
advantage, if there was any, rested on the other
side. But I just want you to remember what we
were told in that first wonderful outpouring of fabri-
cated news — that the naval supremacy of England
was gone for ever, that the freedom of the seas was
assured, that German merchant vessels were steam-
ing home from all directions! No, Mr. Fischer!
Between ourselves, I think that your cause needs a
few fairy stories, and I look upon you as one of the
greatest experts in the world when it comes to con-
cocting them.”
Fischer, who had risen to his feet half way through
Pamela's speech, was obviously a little taken aback
by her direct attack. Mrs. Hastings took no pains
to conceal her annoyance.


THE PAWNS COUNT
257
“ For a young girl of your age, Pamela,” she said
sternly, “I consider that you express your opinions
far too freely. Your attitude, too, is unjustifiable.”
“Ah, well, you see, I am a little prejudiced against
Mr. Fischer," Pamela laughed, turning towards him.
“ He happened to defeat one of my pet schemes.”
“ But I am ready to further your dearest one,” he
reminded her, dropping his voice, and leading her
a little on one side. “What about our alliance?”
“ You scarcely need my aid,” she observed, with a
shrug of the shoulders.
He remonstrated vigorously. There was a revived
hopefulness in his tone. Perhaps, after all, here
was the secret of her displeasure with him.
“You wonder, perhaps, to see me with your uncle.
I give you my word that it is a dinner of courtesy
only. I give you my word that I have not opened
my lips on political matters. I have been waiting
for your answer.”
“I have lost faith in you,” she told him calmly.
“I am not even certain that you possess the author-
ity you spoke of.”
“ If that is all,” he replied eagerly, “ you shall see
it with your own eyes. You are staying with your
uncle and aunt in Washington, are you not? I
shall call upon you immediately I arrive, and bring
it with me."
She nodded.
“Well, that remains a challenge, then, Mr.
Fischer. And now, if you are quite ready,” she
added, turning to Lutchester. ...“ Good-by,
everybody!”


260 THE PAWNS COUNT
The Britishers came out right on top. You know
you stand to net at least half a million, Mr. Lut-
chester? The worst of it is I have another client
who's going to lose it."
Pamela shook her head at Lutchester.
“ The possibility of increased responsibilities,” he
whispered. “A married man needs something to
fall back upon."


CHAPTER XXXI
The offices of Messrs. Neville, Brooks, and Van
Teyl were the scene of something like pandemonium.
Van Teyl himself, bathed in perspiration, rushed
into his room for the twentieth time. He almost
flung the newspaper man who was waiting for him
through the door.
“No, we don't know a darned thing," he declared.
“We've no special information. The only reason
we're up to our neck in Anglo-French is because
we've two big clients dealing."
“It's just a few personal notes about those clients
we'd like to handle."
“ Oh, get out as quick as you can!” Van Teyl
snapped. « This isn't a bucket shop or a pool room.
The names of our clients concerns ourselves only.”
“ What do you think Anglo-French are going to
do, Mr. Van Teyl?”
“I can't tell,” was the prompt answer, “but I can
tell what's going to happen if you don't clear out."
The newspaper man took a hurried leave. Van
Teyl seized the telephone receiver, only to put it
down with a little shout of relief as the door opened
and Lutchester entered.
“ Thank God!” he exclaimed. “Why, I've been
ringing you up for an hour and a half.”


262 THE PAWNS COUNT
“Sorry,” Lutchester replied, “I was down at the
barber's the first time you got through, and then I
had some cables to send off.”
“Look here," Van Teyl continued, gripping him
by the shoulder, “is six hundred and forty thousand
dollars, or thereabouts, profit enough for you on
your Anglo-French? ”
“ It sounds adequate," Lutchester confessed, lay-
ing his hat and cane carefully upon the table and
drawing up an easy-chair. “How much is Mr.
Fischer going to lose?”
“God knows! If you allow me to sell at the
present moment, you'll ease the market, and he'll lose
about what you make.”
“ And if I decide to hold my Anglo-French?”
“ You'll have to provide us with about a couple
of million dollars," Van Teyl replied, “and I should
think you would pretty well break Fischer for a time.
Frankly, he's an important client, and we don't want
him broken, even temporarily.”
“ What do you want me to do, then?”
“Give us authority to sell," Van Teyl begged.
“ Can't you hear them yapping about in the office
outside? They're round me all the time like a pack
of hounds. Honestly, if I don't sell some Anglo-
French before lunch-time to-day, they look like
wrecking the office.”
Lutchester knocked the end of a cigarette thought-
fully against the side of his chair.
“ All right,” he decided, “I don't want you to
suffer any inconvenience. Besides, I am going to
Washington this afternoon. You can keep on sell-


THE PAWNS COUNT
263
ing as long as the market's steady. Directly it
sags, hold off. If necessary, even buy a few more.
You understand me? Don't sell a single block un-
der to-day's price. Keep the market at that figure.
It's an easy job, because next week Anglo-French
will go up again.”
Van Teyl was moved to a rare flash of admira-
tion.
“ You're a cool hand, Lutchester,” he declared,
“ considering you're not a business man.”
“ Fischer's the man who'll need to keep cool,”
Lutchester remarked, lighting his cigarette.“ What
about a little lunch? ”
The stockbroker scarcely heard him. He had
struck a bell, and the office seemed suddenly filled
with clerks. Van Teyl's words were incoherent
a string of strange directions, punctuated by slang
which was, so far as Lutchester was concerned, un-
intelligible. The whole place seemed to wake into a
clamour of telephone bells, shouts, the clanging and
opening of the lift gates, and the hurried tramp of
footsteps in the corridors outside. Lutchester rose
to his feet. He was looking very comfortable and
matter-of-fact in his grey tweed suit and soft felt
hat.
“Perhaps," he observed pleasantly, “ I am out of
place here. Drop me a line and let me know how
things are going to the Hotel Capitol at Washing-
ton.”
“ That's all right,” Van Teyl promised. “I'll get
you on the long-distance 'phone. I was coming my-
self with Pamela for a few days, but this little deal


264
THE PAWNS COUNT
of yours has set things buzzing. ... Say, who's
that?"
The door opened, and Fischer paused upon the
threshold. Certainly, of all the people concerned,
the two speculators themselves seemed the least
moved by the excitement they were causing. Fischer
was dressed with his usual spick-and-span neatness,
and his appearance betrayed no sign of flurry or
excitement. He nodded grimly to Lutchester.
“ My congratulations,” he said. “You seem to
have rigged the Press here to some purpose.”
Lutchester raised his eyebrows.
“I don't even know a newspaper man in New
York,” he declared.
The newcomer gave vent to a little gesture of de-
rision.
“ Then you've some very clever friends! You'd
better make the most of their offices. The German
version of the naval battle will be confirmed and
amplified within twenty-four hours, and then your
Anglo-French will touch mud.”
“ If that is your idea,” Lutchester remarked
suavely, “why buy now? Why not wait till next
week? Come,” he went on, “I will have a little
flutter with you, if you like, Fischer. I will bet you
five thousand dollars, and Van Teyl here shall hold
the stakes, that a week hence to-day Anglo-French
stand higher than they do at this moment."
Fischer hesitated. Then he turned away.
“I am not a sportsman, Mr. Lutchester," he said.
Lutchester brushed away a little dust from his
coat sleeve.


THE PAWNS COUNT 265
“No,” he murmured, “I agree with you. Good
morning!”
Lutchester walked out into the sun-baked streets,
and with his absence Fischer abandoned his almost
unnatural calm. He strode up and down the room,
fuming with rage. At every fresh click of the tape
machine, he snatched at the printed slip eagerly and
threw it away with an oath. No one took any notice
of him. Van Teyl rushed in and out, telephones
clanged, perspiring clerks dashed in with copies of
contracts to add to the small pile upon the desk.
There came a quiet moment presently. Van Teyl
wiped the perspiration from his forehead and drank
a tumblerful of water.
“ Fischer,” he asked, “ what made you go into this
so big? You must have known there was always
the risk of your wireless report beating it up a little
too tall.”
“ It wasn't our report at all that I went by,"
Fischer confessed gloomily. “It was the English
Admiralty announcement that did it. Can you con-
ceive," he went on, striking the table with his fist,
“ any nation at war, with a grain of common sense
or an ounce of self-respect, issuing a statement like
that? — an apology for a defeat which, damn it all,
never happened! Say the thing was a drawn battle,
which is about what it really was. It didn't suit the
Germans to fight it to a finish. They'd everything
to lose and little to gain. So in effect they left the
Britishers there and passed back behind their own
minefield. So far as regards reports, that was vic-
tory enough for any one except those muddle-headed


268
THE PAWNS COUNT
opened it as his car swung slowly through the
traffic:—
Guards at all Connecticut factories doubled. O'Hagan
caught last night in precincts of small arms factory.
Was taken alive, disobeying orders. Be careful.
Fischer tore the note into small pieces. His face
was grimmer than ever as he leaned back amongst
the cushions. There were evil things awaiting him
outside Wall Street.


THE PAWNS COUNT 271
neath a gigantic plane tree in a corner of the lawn.
The place was crowded, and Philip Downing was
an excellent showman.
“ Washington,” he explained, “has never been so
divided into opposite camps, and this is almost the
only common meeting ground. Every one has to
come here, of course. The German Staff play tennis
and the Austrians all go in for polo. Here comes
Ziduski. He's most fearfully popular with the
ladies here — does us a lot of harm, they say. He's
a great sticker for etiquette. He used to nod and
call me Phil. Now you watch. He'll bow from his
waist, as though he had corsets on. As a matter of
fact, he's a good sportsman.”
Count Ziduski's bow was stiff enough but his
intention was obvious. He stopped before the two
men, exchanged a somewhat stilted greeting with
Philip Downing, and turned to Lutchester.
“I believe,” he said, “ that I have the honour of
addressing Mr. Lutchester?”
Lutchester rose to his feet.
“ That is my name,” he admitted.
“We have met in Rome, I think, and in Paris,"
the Count reminded him. “If I might beg for the
favour of a few moments' conversation with you."
The two men strolled away together. The Count
plunged at once into the middle of things.
“ It is you, sir, I believe, whom I have to thank
for the abrupt departure of Mademoiselle Sonia from
New York?”
“Quite true,” Lutchester admitted.
“Under different circumstances,” the Count pro-


272
THE PAWNS COUNT
ceeded, “I might regard such interference in my
affairs in a different manner. Here, of course, that
is impossible. I speak to you out of regard for the
lady in question. You appear in some mysterious
manner to have discovered the fact that she was in
the habit of bringing entirely unimportant and non-
political messages from dear friends in France.”
“ Mademoiselle Sonia," Lutchester said calmly,
“ had for a brief space of time forgotten herself.
She was engaged in carrying out espionage work on
your behalf. I believe I may say that she will do
so no more.”
The Count was a man of medium height, thin,
with complexion absolutely colourless, and deep-
set, tired eyes. At this moment, however, he seemed
endowed with the spirit of a new virility. The cane
which he grasped might have been a dagger. His
smooth tones nursed a threat.
“Mr. Lutchester,” he declared, “if harm should
come to her through your information, I swear to
God that you shall pay!”
Lutchester's manner was mild and unprovocative.
“ Count,” he replied, “we make no war upon
women. Sonia has repented, and the knowledge
which I have of her misdeeds will be shared by no
one. She has gone back to her country to work for
the Red Cross there. So far as I am concerned,
that is the end.”
The two men walked a few steps further in un-
broken silence. Then the Count raised his hat.
“Mr. Lutchester,” he said, “ yours is the reply of
an honourable enemy. I might have trusted you,


274
THE PAWNS COUNT
man with whom she was talking, stepped away from
the circle and held out her hand to Lutchester.
“So you have really come to Washington!” she
exclaimed.
“As a rescuer," Lutchester replied. “I feel that
I have a mission. We cannot afford to lose your
sympathies. May I introduce Philip Downing?"
Pamela shook hands with the young man and took
her place between them.
“ I've been envying you your seat under the tree,”
she said. “ Couldn't we go there for a few mo-
ments ? »
Mrs. Hastings detached herself and approached
them. She received Philip Downing's bow cordially,
and she was almost civil to Lutchester.
“I can't have my niece taken away,” she pro-
tested. “We are just going in to tea, Pamela.”
Pamela shook her head.
“I am going to sit under that tree with Mr. Lut-
chester and Mr. Downing,” she declared. “ Tea
doesn't attract me in the least, and that tree does."
Mrs. Hastings accepted defeat with a somewhat
cynical gracefulness. She closed her lorgnette with
a little snap.
“You leave us all desolated, my dear Pamela," she
said. “You remind me of what your poor dear
father used to say — Almost any one could live with
Pamela if she always had her own way.""
Pamela laughed as she strolled across the lawn.
“ Aren't one's relatives trying !" she murmured.


CHAPTER XXXIII
Philip Downing very soon justified the profession
to which he belonged by strolling off with some excuse
about paying his respects to some acquaintances.
Pamela and Lutchester immediately dropped the
somewhat frivolous tone of their conversation.
“You know that things are moving with our friend
Fischer? ” she began.
“I gathered so,” Lutchester assented.
“ His scheme is growing into shape," she went on.
“ You know what wonderful people his friends are
for organising. Well, they are going to start a
society all through the States and nominate for its
president — Uncle Theodore.”
“ Will they have any show at all?” Lutchester
asked curiously.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Who can tell? The German-Americans are very
powerful indeed all through the West, and then the
pacifists will join them. You see, I believe that al-
though the soul of the country is with the Allies,
England is the most tactless country in the world.
She is always giving little pinpricks to the Govern-
ment over here, either about maritime law or one
thing or another. Then all those articles in the
papers about America being too proud to fight, the


THE PAWNS COUNT 277
anxiously. “Do you think I should be safe in trust-
ing my heart and future to an Englishman?”
“ To one particular Englishman, yes!” was the
firm reply. “I was rather hoping you might have
made up your mind."
“ Too many things to think about,” she laughed.
“How long are you going to stay in Washington?”
“ A few hours or days or weeks — until I have fin-
ished the work that brought me here."
“ And what exactly is that?"
“ You ask me lightly,” he replied, “but, if you
are willing, I have decided to take you into my con-
fidence. Our friend Nikasti will be here to-morrow.
He was to have sailed for Japan yesterday, but he
has postponed his voyage for a few days. Do you
know much about the Japanese, Miss Pamela ? "
“ Very little,” she acknowledged.
“Well, I will tell you one thing. They are not
very good at forgiving. There was only one way I
could deal with Nikasti in New York, and it was a
brutal way. I have seen him twice since. He
wouldn't look me in the eyes. I know what that
means. He hates me. In a sense I don't believe he
would allow that to interfere in any way with his
mission. In another sense it would. The Allies,
above all things, have need of Japan. We want
Japan and America to be friends. We don't want
Germany butting in between the two. Baron Yung
is a very clever man, but he is even more impenetra-
ble than his countrymen generally are. Our people
here admit that they find it difficult to progress with
him very far. They believe that secretly he is in


278
THE PAWNS COUNT
sympathy with Nikasti's reports - but you don't
know about those, I suppose?”.
“I don't think I do,” she admitted.
“ Nikasti was sent to England some years ago to
report upon us as a country. Japan at that time
was meditating an alliance with one of the great
European Powers. Obviously it must be Germany
or England. Nikasti travelled all through Eng-
land, studied our social life, measured our weak-
nesses ; did the same through Germany, returned to
Japan, and gave his vote in favour of Germany. I
have even seen a copy of his report. He laid great
stress upon the absolute devotion to sport of our
young men, and the entire absence of any patriotic
sentiment or any means of national defence. Well,
as you know, for various reasons his counsels were
over-ridden, and Japan chose the British alliance.
That was entirely the fault of imperfect German
diplomacy. At a time like this, though, I cannot
help thinking that some elements of his former dis-
trust still remain in Nikasti's mind, and I have an
idea that Baron Yung is, to a certain extent, a
sympathiser. I've got to get at the bottom of this
before I leave the States. If I need your help, will
you give it me?”
“If I can," she promised.
They saw Mrs. Hastings' figure on the terrace,
waving, and Pamela rose reluctantly to her feet.
“I don't suppose,” Lutchester continued, as they
strolled across the lawn, “ that you have very much
influence with your uncle, or that he would listen
very much to anything that you have to say, but if


THE PAWNS COUNT
279
he is really in earnest about this thing, he is going
to play a terribly dangerous game. As things are at
present, he has a very pleasant and responsible posi-
tion as the supporter and friend of very able men.
With regard to this new movement, he may find the
whole ground crumble away beneath his feet.
Fischer is playing the game of a madman. It isn't
only political defeat that might come to him, but dis-
grace — even dishonour.”
“ You frighten me,” Pamela confessed gravely.
Lutchester sighed.
“ Your uncle,” he went on, “is one of those thor-
oughly conceited, egotistical men who will probably
listen to no one. You see, I have found out a little
about him already. But they tell me that her social
position means a great deal to your aunt. Neither
her birth nor her friends could save her if Fischer
drags your uncle to his chariot wheels.”
“Do you think, perhaps, that you underestimate
Mr. Fischer's position over here?” she asked
thoughtfully.
“I don't think I do," he replied, “but here is
something which you have scarcely appreciated.
Fischer has had the effrontery to link himself up with
a little crowd of Germans all through the States,
who are making organised attempts to destroy the
factories where ammunitions are being made for the
Allies. That sort of thing, you know, would bring
any one, however, distantly connected with it, to
Sing Sing. . . . One moment,” he added quickly, as
Mrs. Hastings stepped forward to meet them; “ the
reception at the British Embassy to-night?"


280
THE PAWNS COUNT
“ The others are going,” she said. “My aunt
didn't feel she was sufficiently ”.
“We sent you a card round especially this after-
noon,” Lutchester interrupted. “You'll come ? "
“How nice of you! Of course I will,” she prom-
ised.


THE PAWNS COUNT
283
thing afoot, and I can't be sure what it is. Look
at the crowd to-night. Of course, all the Americans
are here, but the diplomatic attendance has never
been so thin. The Rumanian Minister and his wife,
the Italian, the Spanish, and the Swedish represen-
tatives are all absent. I have just heard, too, that.
Baron von Schwerin is giving a dinner-party.”
Lutchester looked thoughtfully at the little stream
of people. The Ambassador left him for a few mo-
ments to welcome some late comers. He returned
presently and resumed his seat by Lutchester's side.
“ Of course,” he continued, lowering his voice, “ all
formal communications between us and the enemy
Embassies have ceased, but it has come to be an
understood thing, to avoid embarrassments to our
mutual friends, that we do not hold functions on
the same day. I heard that Von Schwerin was
giving this dinner-party, so I sent round this morn-
ing to inquire. The reply was that it was entirely a
private one. One of our youngsters brought us in
a list of the guests a short time ago. I see Hastings
is one of them, and Fischer, and Rumania and Greece
will be represented. Now Hastings was to have been
here, and as a rule the neutrals are very punctilious.”
“ I suppose the way that naval affair was repre-
sented didn't do us any good,” Lutchester observed.
“ It did us harm, without a doubt," was the lugu-
brious admission. “ Still, fortunately, these people
over here are clever enough to understand our idio-
syncrasies. I honestly think we'd rather whine
about a defeat than glory in a victory.”
“ Diplomatically, too," Lutchester remarked


284
THE PAWNS COUNT
thoughtfully, “I should have said that things seemed
all right here. The President comes in for a great
deal of abuse in some countries. Personally, I think
he has been wonderful.”
The Ambassador nodded.
“ You and I both know, Lutchester," he said,
“ that the last thing we want is to find America
dragged into this war. Such a happening would be
nothing more nor less than a catastrophe in itself, to
say nothing of the internal dissensions here. On the
other hand, as things are now, Washington is becom-
ing a perfect arena for diplomatic chicanery, and I
have just an instinct — I can't define it in any way
— which leads me to believe that some fresh trouble
has started within the last twenty-four hours.”
Lady Ridlingshawe motioned to her husband with
her fan, and he rose at once to his feet.
“I must leave you to look after yourself for a
time, Lutchester," he concluded. “You'll find
plenty of people here you know. Don't go until
you've seen me again.”
Lutchester wandered off in search of Pamela. He
found her with Mrs. Hastings, surrounded by a lit-
tle crowd of acquaintances. Pamela waved her fan,
and they made way for him.
“Mr. Lutchester, I have been looking everywhere
for you!” she exclaimed. “What a secretive person
you are! Why couldn't you tell me that Lady Rid-
lingshawe was your cousin? I want you to take me
to her, please. I met her sister out in Nice."
She laid her fingers upon his arm, and they passed
out of the little circle.


THE PAWNS COUNT
285
“ All bluff, of course,” she murmured. “Find the
quietest place you can. I want to talk to you."
They wandered out on to a balcony where some
of the younger people were taking ices. She leaned
over the wooden rail.
“ Listen,” she said, “ I adore this atmosphere, and
I am perfectly certain there is something going on —
something exciting, I mean. You know that the
Baron von Schwerin has a dinner-party?”
“I know that,” he assented.
“Uncle Theodore is going with Mr. Fischer. He
was invited at the last moment, and I understand
that his presence was specially requested.”
Lutchester stood for a short time in an absorbed
and sombre silence. In the deep blue twilight his
face seemed to have fallen into sterner lines. With-
out a doubt he was disturbed. Pamela looked at him
anxiously.
“ Is anything the matter?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“ Nothing definite, only for the last few hours I
have felt that things here are reaching a crisis.
There is something going on around us, something
which seems to fill Fischer and his friends with con-
fidence, something which I don't quite understand,
and which it is my business to understand. That is
really what is worrying me.”
She nodded sympathetically and glanced around
for a moment.
“Let me tell you something,” she whispered.
“ This evening my uncle came into my room just be-
fore dinner. There is a little safe built in the wall


286
THE PAWNS COUNT
for jewellery. He begged for the loan of it. His
library safe, he said, was out of order. I couldn't
see what he put in, but when he had closed the door
he stood looking at it for a moment curiously. I
made some jesting remark about its being a treasure
chest, but he answered me seriously. You are go-
ing to sleep to-night, Pamela,' he said, ' within a few
yards of a dozen or so of written words which will
change the world's history.""
Lutchester was listening intently. There was a
prolonged pause.
“Well?” he asked, at last.
She glanced at the little Yale key which hung
from her bracelet.
“ Nothing! I was just wondering how I should be
able to sleep through the night without opening the
safe.”
“But surely your uncle didn't give you the key!”
She shook her head.
“I don't suppose he knows I have such a thing,”
she replied. “He has a master-key himself to all
the safes, which he used. This is one the house-
keeper gave me as soon as I arrived."
Lutchester looked out into the darkness.
“ Tell me,” he inquired, “is that your house —
the next one to this ? "
“That's the old Hastings' house," she assented.
“ They are all family mansions along here."
“ It looks an easy place to burgle,” he remarked.
She laughed quietly.
“I should think it would be,” she admitted.
“ There are any quantity of downstair windows.


288
THE PAWNS COUNT
sailing for Japan, but I made a mortal enemy of him
at the same time. He has come to Washington to
consult with his Ambassador. They are together to-
night. It is my mission to convince them of Ger-
many's duplicity.”
“I see. . . . And you think that these written
words — ?”
“Give the key to me," he begged, “and ask no
questions."
She shook her head.
“I should object most strongly to nocturnal dis-
turbers of my slumbers !”
It seemed to her that his frame had become tenser,
his tone harder. The grip of his fingers was still
upon her wrist.
“Even your objection,” he said, “Inight not re-
lieve you of the possibility of their advent.”
“Don't be silly,” she answered, “ and, above all,
don't try to threaten me. If you want my help —”
She looked steadfastly across at the looming out-
line of the Hastings' house.
“I do want your help,” he assured her.
“ How long should you require the letter for?”
“ One hour,” he replied.
She led him down some steps on to the smooth
lawns which encircled the house. They passed in
and out of some gigantic shrubs until at last they
came to a paling. She felt along it for a few yards.
“ There is a gate there,” she told him. “ Can you
do anything with it?"
It was fastened by an old lock. He lifted it off
its hinges, and they both passed through.


THE PAWNS COUNT
289
“ Keep behind the shrubs as much as you can,”
she whispered. “There is a way into the house
from the verandah here."
They reached at last the shadow of the building.
She paused.
“Wait here for me," she continued. “I would
rather enter the house without being seen, if I can,
but it doesn't really matter. I can make some excuse
for coming back. Don't move from where you
are."
She glided away from him and disappeared. Lut-
chester waited, standing well back in the shadow
of the shrubs. From the Embassy came all the time
the sound of music, occasionally even the murmur
of voices; from the dark house in front of him,
nothing. Suddenly he heard what seemed to be the
opening of a window, and then soft footsteps.
Pamela appeared round the corner of the building,
a white, spectral figure against that background of
deep blue darkness. She came on tiptoe, running
down the steps and holding her skirts with both
hands.
“ Not a soul has seen me," she whispered. " Take
this quickly.”
She thrust an envelope into his hands, and some-
thing hard with it.
“ That's Uncle Theodore's seal,” she explained.
“He sealed up the envelope when he put it in there.
Now come back quickly to the Embassy. You must
please hurry with what you want to do. If I have
left when you return, you must come back to exactly
this place. That window”- she pointed upwards


290
THE PAWNS COUNT
- “ will be wide open. You must throw a pire cone
or a pebble through it. I shall be waiting."
“I understand," he assured her.
They retraced their steps. Once more they drew
near to the Embassy. The night had grown warmer
and more windows had been opened. They reached
the verandah. She touched his hand for a moment.
“Well,” she said, “I don't know whether I have
been wise or not. Try and be back in less than an
hour, if you can. I am going in alone."
She left him, and Lutchester, after a few brief
words with the Ambassador, hurried away to his
task. In twenty minutes he stood before a tall,
grey-stone building, a few blocks away, was admitted
by a Japanese butler, and conducted, after some
hesitation, into a large room at the back of the
house. An elderly man, dressed for the evening, with
the lapel of his coat covered with orders, was await-
ing him.
“I am a stranger to you, Baron,” Lutchester be-
gan.
“ That does not matter," was the grave reply.
“ Ten minutes ago I had an urgent telephone call
from our mutual friend. His Excellency told me
that he was sending a special messenger, and begged
me to give you a few minutes. I have left a confer-
ence of some importance, and I am here."
“A few minutes will be enough,” Lutchester prom-
ised. “I am engaged by the English Government
upon Secret Service work. I came to America, fol-
lowing a man named Fischer. You have heard of
him?"


THE PAWNS COUNT
291
“ I have heard of him,” the Ambassador acknowl-
edged.
“ In New York,” Lutchester continued, “he met
one of your countrymen, Prince Nikasti, a man, I
may add,” Lutchester went on, “ for whom I have
the highest respect and esteem, although quite
penly, years ago, he pronounced himself unfavour-
ably disposed towards my country. The object of
Fischer's meeting with Prince Nikasti was to con-
vey to him certain definite proposals on behalf of the
German Government. They wish for a rapproche-
ment with your country. They offer certain terms,
confirmation of which Fischer brought with him in
an autograph letter."
There was a moment's silence. Not a word came
from the man who seemed to have learnt the gift of
sitting with absolute immovability. Even his eyes
did not blink. He sat and waited.
“ The proposals made to you are plausible and de-
serving of consideration,” Lutchester proceeded.
“Do not think that there exists in my mind, or
would exist in the mind of any Englishman knowing
of them, any feeling of resentment that these pro-
posals should have been received by you for consid-
eration. Nothing in this world counts to those who
follow the arts of diplomacy, save the simple welfare
of the people whom he represents. It is therefore
the duty of every patriot to examine carefully all
proposals made to him likely to militate to the ad-
vantage of his own people. You have a letter, offer-
ing you certain terms to withdraw from your present
alliances. Here is a letter from the same source, in


292
THE PAWNS COUNT
the same handwriting, written to America. Break
the seal yourself. It was brought to this country
by Fischer, in the same dispatch box as yours, to be
handed to some responsible person in the American
Government. It was handed to Senator Theodore
Hastings. It is to form part of his platform on the
day when his nomination as President is announced.
It must be back in his safe within three-quarters of
an hour. Break the seal and read it.”
The Japanese held out his hand, broke the seal of
the envelope, and read. His face remained immov-
able. When he had finished he looked up at his
visitor.
“I am permitted to take a copy? " he asked.
“ Certainly!”
He touched a bell, spoke down a mouthpiece, and
with almost necromantic swiftness two young men
were in the room. A camera was dragged out, a
little flash of light shot up to the ceiling, and the
attachés vanished as quickly as they had come. The
Ambassador replaced the document in its envelope,
handed a stick of sealing-wax and a candle to Lut-
chester, who leaned over and resealed the enve-
lope.
“ The negative?” he enquired.
“Will be kept under lock and key,” the Ambas-
sador promised. “ It will pass into the archives of
Japanese history. In future we shall know."
Once more he touched a bell. The door was
opened. Lutchester found himself escorted into the
street. He was back at the Embassy in time to
meet a little stream of departing guests. Lady Rid-


294
THE PAWNS COUNT
you can have as many as you like. Have you earned
it?” he added, a little curiously.
“I almost believe that I have,” Lutchester as-
sented.


THE PAWNS COUNT 297
It is a new thing to many of the manufacturers here,
and it is obvious that they are not making use of
all the necessary precautions.”
“I see," Hastings observed, reflectively. “ So
that is how you would explain this epidemic of dis-
asters, eh?”
“ Certainly!”
“ At the same time, Fischer, to set my mind en-
tirely at rest,” Hastings continued, “I should like
your assurance that you have nothing whatever to do
with any organisation, should there be such a thing,
including in its object the destruction of American
property.”
“I will do more than answer your question in the
direct negative,” was the firm reply. “I will assure
you that no such organisation exists."
“I am relieved to hear it,” Hastings confessed.
“ This resignation of Roughton, however, seems a
strange thing. Most of these fires have occurred in
his State. . . . Ah! there is Senator Joyce waiting
for us, and Pamela and Mrs. Hastings.”
Mr. Hastings as a host was in his element. His
manners and tact, which his enemies declared were
far too perfect, were both admirably displayed in the
smaller ways of life. He guided the conversation
into light yet opportune subjects, and he utterly
ignored the fact that Senator Joyce, one of the great
politicians of the day, whose support of his nomina-
tion was already more than half promised, seemed
distrait and a little cold. It was Pamela who quite
inadvertently steered the conversation into a dan-
gerous channel.


298
THE PAWNS COUNT
“ What has Governor Roughton been doing, Mr.
Fischer? ” she asked.
There was a moment's silence. Pamela's question
had fallen something like a bombshell amongst the
little party. It was their guest who replied.
“ The matter is occupying the attention of the
country very largely at the moment, Miss Van Teyl,”
he said. “It is perhaps unfortunate that Governor
Roughton seems to have allowed his sympathies to
be so clearly known.”
“He is a German by birth, is he not?” Pamela
inquired.
“ Most decidedly not,” Fischer asserted. “I was
· at Harvard with him.”
“ All the same,” Pamela murmured under her
breath, “ I think that he was born at Stuttgart.”
“He is an American citizen," Senator Joyce ob-
served, “ and has reached a high position here. We
of the Administration may be wrong," he continued,
“ but we believe, and we think that we have a right
to believe, that when any man of conscience and
ideals takes the oath, he is free from all previous
prejudices. He is an American citizen — nothing
more and nothing less.”
“ Of course, that is magnificent,” Pamela declared,
“ but it isn't common sense, is it, and you haven't
answered my original question yet.”
“I am not in a position to do so, Miss Van Teyl,”
Joyce replied. “The trouble probably is that Gov-
ernor Roughton has been considered incompetent as
so many of these disasters have taken place un-
hindered in his State.”


THE PAWNS COUNT
299
“ There was a rumour,” Pamela persisted, “ that
he was under arrest.”
“Quite untrue, I am sure,” Fischer muttered.
There was a general diversion of the conversation,
but the sense of uneasiness remained. Pamela and
Mrs. Hastings, at the conclusion of the little ban-
quet, acting upon a hint from their host, made their
way to one of the small drawing-rooms for their
coffee. Left alone, the three men drew their chairs
closer together. Joyce's fine face seemed somehow
to have become a little harder and more unsympa-
thetic. He sipped the water, which was his only
beverage, and pushed away the cigars in which he
generally indulged.
“Mr. Hastings,” he pronounced, “I have given
the subject of supporting your nomination my deep-
est consideration. I was at one time, I must confess,
favourably disposed towards the idea. I have
changed my mind. I have decided to give my sup-
port to the present Administration.”
Fischer's face was dark with anger. He even
allowed an expletive to escape from his lips.
Hastings, however, remained master of him-
self.
“I will not conceal from you, Mr. Joyce,” he con-
fessed, “ that I am exceedingly disappointed. You
have fully considered everything, I presume — our
pledge, for instance, to nominate you as my suc-
cessor?”
“I have considered everything,” Joyce replied.
“ The drawback in my mind, to be frank with you, is
that I doubt whether you would receive sufficient sup-


302
THE PAWNS COUNT
received on my way here. I have an idea that it is
about this Roughton business."
Fischer returned to the others alone. Hastings
was clearly disturbed at his guest's departure. His
friend and supporter, however, affected to treat it
lightly.
“ Joyce is like all these lawyers,” he declared.
“ He is simply waiting to see which way the wind
blows. I have come across them many times. They
like to wait till parties are evenly balanced, till their
support makes all the difference, and clinch their
bargain then.”
“I should have said,” Pamela remarked, “ that
Mr. Joyce was a man above that sort of thing.”
“Every man has his price and his weak spot,” her
uncle observed didactically. “ Joyce's price is the
Presidency. His weak spot is popular adulation. I
agree with Fischer. He will probably join us later.”
Mr. Hastings was summoned to the telephone, a
moment or two later. Mrs. Hastings sat down to
write a note, and Pamela moved her place over to
Fischer's side. His face brightened at her spontane-
ous movement. She shook her head, however, at the
little compliment with which he welcomed her.
“ This afternoon,” she said softly, “I met Mr.
Lutchester.”
“Is he back in New York?” Fischer asked,
frowning
Pamela nodded.
“ He told me something which I feel inclined to
tell you,” she continued, glancing into her com-
panion's haggard face with a gleam of sympathy in


THE PAWNS COUNT
303
her eyes. “You'll probably see it in the newspapers
to-morrow morning. Governor Roughton's resigna-
tion was compulsory. He is under arrest."
“For negligence?”
“For participation," was the grave reply. “Mr.
Lutchester has been down to — the city where these
things took place. He only got back late this after-
noon."
“ Lutchester again!” Fischer muttered.
“ You see, it's rather in his line,” Pamela re-
minded him. “ He is over here to superintend the
production of munitions from the factories which are
working for the British Government.”
“ He is over here as a sort of general mischief-
maker!” Fischer exclaimed fiercely. “Do I under-
stand that he has been down in ?"
Pamela nodded.
“He went down with one of the heads of the New
York police.”
She turned away, but Fischer caught at her wrist.
“ You know more than this !” he cried hoarsely.
The agony in the man's face and tone touched
her. After all, he was fighting for the great things.
There was nothing mean about Fischer, nothing
selfish about his lying and his crimes.
“I have told you all that I can,” she whispered,
“ but if you hurried, you could catch the New York
to-night -- and I think I should advise you to go.”


THE PAWNS COUNT
305
“What for? ” Fischer demanded, breathing a lit-
tle thickly.
“I have no certain information," the secretary
replied, with a noncommittal air. “ All I know is
that I had a long-distance telephone to burn certain
documents, but before I could do so the room and
the house were searched by New York detectives,
whose warrant it was useless to resist.”
“ But what's the charge against Mr. Bookam?"
“ It's something to do with the disasters in "
the young man confided. “The Governor of the
State, who is Mr. Bookam's cousin, is in the same
trouble. . . . Better sit down a moment, sir.
You're looking white.”
Mr. Fischer threw himself into an easy-chair. He
felt like a man who has built a mighty piece of
machinery, has set it swinging through space, and
watches now its imminent collapse; watches some
tiny but ghastly flaw, pregnant with disaster, grow-
ing wider and wider before his eyes.
“What papers did the police take away with
them?” he asked.
“ There wasn't very much for them,” the secretary
replied. “ There was a list of the names of the pro-
posed organisation which, owing to your very wise
intervention, was never formed. There was a list
of factories throughout the United States in which
munitions are being made, with a black mark against
those holding the most important contracts. And
there was a letter from Governor Roughton."
“ Mr. Bookam hasn't drawn any cheques lately for
large amounts? ” Fischer inquired eagerly.


THE PAWNS COUNT
307
ud ben
an to th
statos
-t anton
of the
disappointment. Nikasti was to have been there to
bid him farewell — Nikasti on his way back to Japan.
He ascertained from the office of the hotel that there
had been no telephone message or caller. Then he
turned to his correspondence, some presentiment al-
ready clutching at his strained nerves. There was
a letter in a large envelope, near the bottom of the
pile, addressed to him in Nikasti's fine handwriting.
He tore open the envelope, and slow horror seized
him as he realised its contents. A long photograph
unrolled itself before his eyes. The first few words
brought confusion and horror to his sense. His
brain reeled. This was defeat, indeed! It was a
photograph of that other autograph letter. The one
which he had given to Nikasti to carry to Japan
lay - gross sacrilege! — about him in small pieces.
There was no other line, no message, nothing but
this damning proof of his duplicity.
A kind of mental torture seized him. He fought
like a caged man for some way out. Every sort of ex-
planation occurred to him only to be rejected, every
sort of subterfuge, only to be cast aside with a kind of
ghastly contempt. He felt suddenly stripped bare.
His tongue could serve him no more. He snatched
at the telephone receiver and rang up the number for
which he searched eagerly through the book.
“ Is that the office of the American Steamship
Company? ” he asked.
66 Yes.”
“What time will the New York sail?”
“In three-quarters of an hour. Who's speak-
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ine, he had
was a mai
a moment
tel a little
2 to look
his rooms
one lite
ing?"


308
THE PAWNS COUNT
“Mr. Oscar Fischer. Keep anything you have
for me."
He threw down the receiver for fear of a refusal,
packed a few things feverishly in a dressing bag,
dashed the rest of his correspondence into his pocket,
and with the bag in one hand, and an overcoat over
the other arm, he hastened out into the street. He
was obliged at first to board a street car. After-
wards he found a taxicab, and drove under the great
wooden shed as the last siren was blowing. He hur-
ried up the gangway, a grim, remorseful figure, a
sense of defeat gnawing at his heart, a bitter, haunt-
ing fear still with him even when, with a shriek of the
tugs, the great steamer swung into the river. He
was leaving forever the work to which he had given
so much of his life, leaving it a fugitive and dis-
honoured. The blaze of lights, the screaming of the
great ferry-boats, all the triumphant, brazen noises
of the mighty city, sounded like a requiem to him as
in the darkest part of the promenade deck he leaned
over the railing and nursed his agony, the supreme
agony of an ambitious man — failure.


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CHAPTER XXXVII
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“ What has become,” Mrs. Theodore Hastings
asked her niece one afternoon about a month later,
“ of your delightful friend, Mr. Lutchester?”
Pamela laid down her book and looked across at
her aunt with wide-open eyes.
“ Why, I thought you didn't like him, aunt?”
“I cannot remember saying so, my dear,” Mrs.
Hastings replied. “I had nothing against the man
himself. It was simply his attitude with regard to
some of your uncle's plans, of which we disapproved.”
Pamela nodded. They were seated on the piazza
of the Hastings' country house at Manchester.
“I see! ... And uncle's plans,” she went on re-
flectively, “have become a little changed, haven't
they? "
Mrs. Hastings coughed.
“ There is no doubt,” she admitted, “ that your
Uncle Theodore was inveigled into supporting, to a
certain extent, a party whose leaders have shown
themselves utterly irresponsible. The moment these
horrible things began to come out, however, your
uncle finally cut himself loose from them.”
“ Very wise of him," Pamela murmured.
“Who could have believed,” Mrs. Hastings de-
manded, “ that men like Oscar Fischer, Max
he supreme


310
THE PAWNS COUNT
Bookam and a dozen other well-known and prominent
millionaires, would have stooped to encourage the
destruction of American property and lives, simply
through blind devotion to the country of their birth.
I could understand,” she went on, “ both your uncle
and I perfectly understood that their sympathies
were German rather than English, but we shared a
common belief that notwithstanding this they were
Americans first and foremost. It was in this belief
that your uncle was led into temporary association
with them.”
“ Bad luck,” Pamela sighed. “I am afraid it
hasn't done Uncle Theodore any good.”
Mrs. Hastings went on with her knitting for a
moment.
“My child," she said, “it has probably imper-
illed, if it has not completely ruined, one of the great
hopes which your uncle and I have sometimes enter-
tained. We are both of us, however, quite philo-
sophical about it. Even at this moment I am con-
vinced that if these men had acted with discretion,
and been content to wield political influence rather
than to have resorted to such fanatical means, they
would have represented a great power at the next
election. As things are, I admit that their cause is
lost for the time. I believe that your uncle is con-
templating an early visit to England. He is of the
opinion that perhaps he has misunderstood the Allied
point of view, and he is going to study matters at
first hand.”
Pamela nodded.
“I think he is very wise, aunt," she declared. “I


314
THE PAWNS COUNT
mans are a wonderful military people. They were
fighting like giants whilst you in England were still
slacking. But it is Germany herself, or rather her
sons and friends, who have destroyed her chances for
her. Fischer, for instance,” he went on, fingering
his wineglass. “I have always looked upon Oscar
Fischer as a brilliant and far-seeing man. He was
one of those who set themselves deliberately to win
America for the Germans. A more idiotic bungle
than he has made of things I could scarcely conceive.
He has reproduced the diplomatic methods which
have made Germany unpopular throughout the
world. He has tried bullying, cajolery, and false-
hood, and last of all he has plunged into crime. No
German-American will henceforth ever have weight
in the counsels of this country. I do not mind con-
fessing,” Mr. Hastings continued, as he himself filled
his guest's glass and then his own, “ that I myself
was at one time powerfully attracted towards the
Teuton cause. They are a nation wonderful in
science, wonderful in warfare, with strong and ad-
mirable national characteristics. Yet they are going
to lose this war through sheer lack of tact, for the
want of that kindliness, that generosity of tempera-
ment, which exists and makes friends in nations as
in individuals. The world for Germany, you know,
and hell for her enemies ! ... But I am keeping
you."
Lutchester drank his wine and rose to his feet.
“Pamela is sitting on the rocks there,” Mr. Hast-
ings observed. “I think that she wants to sail you
over to Misery Island. We get some unearthly meal


THE PAWNS COUNT
315
there at ten o'clock and come back by moonlight. It
is a sort of torture which we always inflict upon our
guests. My wife and I will follow in the launch.”
“ To Misery Island!” Lutchester repeated.
His host smiled as he led the way to the piazza
steps. Pamela had already stepped into the boat,
and with the help of a boatman was adjusting the
sail. She waved her hand gaily and pointed to the
level stretch of placid water, still faintly brilliant in
the dying sunlight.
“You think that we shall reach Misery Island be-
fore the tide turns? " she called out.
Lutchester stepped lightly into the boat and took
the place to which she pointed.
“ I am content,” he said, “ to take my chance.”
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