The Pawns Count Part 23

JOHN LUTCHESTER.

Pamela laid down the note, conscious of an indefined 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 window across the park, delightful and exhilarating, yet something had gone out of the day. Accustomed to self-a.n.a.lysis, she asked herself swiftly--what? It was, without a doubt, something to do with Lutchester's departure. She tried to face the question of her disappointment. Was it possible to feel any real interest in a man who preferred a Government post to the army at such a time, and who had brought his golf clubs out to America? Her imagination for a moment revolved around the problem 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 appeared upon the surface? She clasped her knees and sat up in bed, listening to the sound of the running water in the next room. Was there any possible 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 what was pa.s.sing 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. Supposing for a moment that Lutchester was also out for the great things, was he fooled by her att.i.tude? If he knew so much, he must know that the secret remained 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 breakfast.

"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 and 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 h.e.l.l--some h.e.l.l! 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 imagine 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 confusing. 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 thousand dollars I made out last night before I went to bed," she added, pa.s.sing it over to him. "Just replace 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.

"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 understand 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 service work.

Where do you come in, anyway? What are you going to Washington for?"

She smiled.

"Queer tastes, haven't I, Jimmy?"

"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 Administration, 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 Emba.s.sy at all. Sometimes, as 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 information to get.

Sometimes it's been just about commercial 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 sh.e.l.l 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 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 j.a.p 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 London, 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 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, dropping 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?"