The Pawns Count Part 29

"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 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 expressionless.

"Germany has but one idea," Lutchester continued. "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 diplomacy 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 keeping. Have you anything to say to me, Nikasti?"

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 remains possible. Before you leave this country we will meet again, and, when you have heard me, you will tear that letter which you are treasuring next your heart into small pieces."

Lutchester turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Nikasti crouched in his place without movement. The ache in his heart seemed to be shining out of his face. He turned slowly towards the little figure of black ivory, his head drooped lower--he was filled with a great shame.

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 replied. "I think it best that I remain here. Your c.o.c.ktail, sir."

Fischer accepted the gla.s.s 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 somewhere quietly for a few days. Why don't you try one of the summer hotels on Long Island?"

Nikasti shook his head.

"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 c.o.c.ktail, 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 c.o.c.ktails. Fischer smiled as he raised his gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s. He was looking a little glum.

"In many ways, my dear Fischer," he said, "one sympathises with that speech of yours; but the truth is best, and it is to talk truths that we have met this evening. We are gaining no ground here. I am not sure that we are not losing."

There was a moment's disturbed and agitated silence.

"It is bad to hear," one little man acknowledged, with a sigh, "but who can doubt it? There is a fever which has caught hold of this country, which blazes in the towns and smoulders in the country places, and that is the fever of money-making. Men are blinded with the pa.s.sion of it.

They tell me that even Otto Schmidt in Milwaukee has turned his great factories into ammunition works."

Von Schwerin's eyes flashed.

"Let him be careful," he muttered, "that one morning those are not blackened walls upon which he looks! We go to dinner now, gentlemen, and, until we are alone afterwards, not one word concerning the great things."

The part.i.tion doors leading into the dining room were thrown back and the little company of men sat down to dine. There were fourteen of them, and their names were known throughout the world. There was a steel millionaire, half-a-dozen Wall Street magnates, a clothing manufacturer, whose house in Fifth Avenue was reputed to have cost two millions. There was not one of them who was not a patriot--to Germany.

They ate and drank through the courses of an abnormally long dinner with the businesslike thoroughness of their race. When at last the coffee and liqueurs had been served, the waiters by prearrangement disappeared, and with a little flourish Von Schwerin locked the door.

Once more he raised his gla.s.s.

"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 purpose.

"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 Amba.s.sador 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.

Notwithstanding all my efforts, and the efforts of every one of you, the great momentum of public feeling, from California to Ma.s.sachusetts, has turned slowly towards the cause of our enemies. Washington is hopelessly against us. The huge supplies which leave these sh.o.r.es day by day for England and France will continue. Fresh plants are being laid down for the manufacture of weapons and ammunition 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."

There were a variety of guttural and sympathetic e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. 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 a.s.sure 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 approvingly. Von Schwerin filled his gla.s.s.

"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."