A DEAL WITH NIKO
Lavendale paused in the act of struggling with his tie, and looked
steadfastly into the mirror in front of him. He had heard no definite
sound, yet some queer intuition seemed to have suddenly awakened within
his subconscious mind a sense of the mysterious, something close at
hand, unaccountable, minatory. His flat was empty and the catch of the
front door secure, yet he knew very well that he was being watched. He
turned slowly around.
'What the mischief----'
He broke off in his sentence. A small man, dressed in black clothes,
imperturbable, yellow-skinned, and with Oriental type of features, was
standing to attention, a clothes-brush in his hand. His dark, oval
eyes rested for a moment upon the crumpled failure of Lavendale's tie.
Without a word he took another from an open drawer, came softly across
the room and reached upwards. Before Lavendale knew what was
happening, the bow which had been worrying him for the last five
minutes was faultlessly tied. He glanced into the mirror and was
compelled to give vent to a little exclamation of satisfaction.
'That's all very well, you know,' he said, turning once more around.
'The tie's all right, but who the devil are you, and what are you doing
in my rooms?'
The man bowed. Again the Oriental seemed to assert itself in the
subtle ease with which he almost prostrated himself.
'Sir,' he explained, 'I am the friend of your servant Perkins.'
'Then perhaps you can tell me where on earth Perkins is?' Lavendale
demanded.
'He is in the hospital, sir,' the man answered. 'He met with a slight
accident while he and I were together. I am his messenger. I
undertook to bring you news of him and to do what I could, in my poor
way, to fill his place for this evening. He lent me his key. It was
in that manner I was able to gain entrance here.'
'An accident?' Lavendale repeated. 'What sort of an accident?'
'I chose an idle word, perhaps,' the other confessed. 'It was indeed
more a matter of sudden illness. Perkins and I lunched together at the
Chinese Restaurant in Piccadilly Circus. As we left the place, he
faltered; he fainted in the passage. I called a taxicab and took him
to the hospital. It was not a great affair, they said, but it was
better that he should rest there. So I came to you.'
'And who the dickens may you be?'
'My name is Niko. I came from Japan with General Kinish, military
attaché to the Japanese Embassy. He has gone to the Italian Front and
left me without a situation.'
'You're all right at ties, any way,' Lavendale admitted, glancing once
more into the mirror. 'All the same, I think I can get along without a
man until Perkins comes back.'
His hands sought his trousers pockets but Niko shook his head gravely.
'It is impossible,' he protested. 'Perkins may be away for a week. I
shall wait upon you until he returns. It is best.'
'Well, have it your own way,' Lavendale remarked. 'Better answer that
bell, then. If it is a lady, show her into the sitting-room.'
Niko glided away and returned in a moment.
'The lady,' he announced, 'is in the sitting-room.'
He held up Lavendale's coat and the latter hastened from the room.
Suzanne de Freyne was standing facing the door as he entered, her
theatre cloak thrown back. He took her hands.
'You are adorably punctual!' he exclaimed.
'Tell me,' she asked, a little abruptly, 'how long have you had your
valet?'
'About five minutes, I believe,' he answered. 'He is a substitute. My
own man was taken ill at luncheon-time. Why do you ask?'
'Because he is the first person,' she explained, 'who has succeeded in
puzzling me in one particular way since I can remember.'
He looked at her as though for an explanation, and in a moment she
continued.
'I flatter myself that I never forget a face. Your valet is perfectly
well-known to me and yet I cannot tell you who he is.'
Lavendale glanced uneasily towards the door.
'I shan't keep him,' he said. 'I hate prejudices, but I am full of
them. The fellow's a Jap, of course.'
Suzanne did not reply for a moment. Her attention seemed to have
suddenly wandered. Then she turned around with a little laugh.
'I am hungry, my friend!' she exclaimed. 'Let us go. And yet,
remember this. Temporary servants are bad things for people who follow
our profession.'
They left the room. Niko was standing with the front door wide open,
his master's hat and gloves in his hand.
'I will be here at seven o'clock in the morning, sir,' he promised,
'and bring news of Perkins.'
Lavendale nodded. The door was closed softly behind them. At the
bottom of the stairs he glanced up.
'Wish I could get rid of the ridiculous idea I have about that fellow,'
he remarked.
'Is there anything in your rooms of particular--I will not say value, I
will say interest?' she inquired.
'I suppose I have the usual amount of valuables,' he admitted, 'but
Perkins is a very careful servant, and I am sure he would never have
sent any one who wasn't reliable. As regards my papers and that sort
of thing, they are all locked up in a safe with a combination lock.'
She did not pursue the subject and it faded quickly from Lavendale's
mind. They dined in a quiet corner at the Milan and they talked of
many things, chiefly the war.
'Do you realize,' he asked her, towards the end of their meal, 'that
you are still a complete mystery to me?'
She nodded affably.
'Yes?'
'You know what I mean, of course,' he went on. 'Three weeks ago we
joined hands for a moment. We were--may I not use the
word?--associates. We were not, perhaps, completely successful in our
enterprise, but at least we prevented that marvellous secret from ever
reaching an enemy's hands. Then you disappeared. I heard nothing from
you until your voice startled me down the telephone to-night--you want
to dine with me. Well, I am your slave and here I am, but tell me,
where have you been all this time?'
'In France,' she answered.
'And what have you been doing?'
'Attending to my own business.'
'And what is that?' he asked coolly.
She raised her eyebrows but her air of offence was obviously assumed.
She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke for a minute. He was
absorbed in the study of her hands--her unusually firm yet delicate
fingers, ringless save for one large, quaintly-cut emerald.
'In my life,' she said, 'I have no confidants.'
'That seems a pity,' he replied. 'We might be useful to one another.'
'I am not so sure,' she answered thoughtfully. 'For instance, although
we speak together in English, my soul is French. I am for France and
France only. England is our very dear ally. England is a splendid and
an honourable nation, but it is France's future welfare in which I am
concerned, and not England's. You, on the other hand, are Saxon.
England and America, after all, are very close together.'
'Greatest mistake of your life,' he assured her. 'I have a great
respect for England and a great liking for English people, and I
believe that she was dragged into this war without wanting it, but, on
the other hand, as I told you once before, I am for America and America
only. England has asked for what she is getting for a good many years.
If even she gets a good hiding it won't do her any harm.'
'But America is so far outside,' she observed.
'Don't you make any mistake,' he answered promptly. 'The world grows
smaller, year by year. The America of fifty years ago has become
impossible to-day. We have our political interests in every country,
and, however slow and unwilling we may be to take up our
responsibilities, we've got to come into line with the other great
Powers and use the same methods.'
'You may be right,' she confessed. 'Very well, then, you are for
America and I am for France. Now tell me, as between Germany and
England how are your sympathies?'
'With England, without a doubt,' he pronounced. 'Mind, I am not a
rabid anti-German. I am not in the least sure that a nation with the
great genius for progress that Germany has shown is not to some extent
justified by taking up the sword to hew a larger place in the world for
her own people. But that does not affect my answer to your question.
My sympathies are with England.'
She flicked the ash from her cigarette. She was looking a little
languidly across the room towards a table set against the wall.
'If your sympathy were a little stronger,' she remarked quietly, 'I
could show you how to render England an incalculable service.'
'Tell me how?'
'First of all,' she continued, 'look at those three men and tell me
what you think of them?'
He turned a little in his place and glanced towards the table which she
had indicated. One of the three men who were seated at it was
obviously a foreigner. His hair was grey towards the temples, although
his moustache was almost jet-black; his cheek-bones were high, his
teeth a little prominent. He wore evening clothes of the most correct
cut, his shirt and links were unexceptionable. His two companions were
men of a different stamp. The one who seemed to dominate the party was
a huge man, clean-shaven, with puffy face and small eyes. He wore a
dark flannel suit of transatlantic cut. He was drinking a large whisky
and soda and smoking a cigar, and had apparently eaten nothing. His
companion was of smaller build, with flaxen moustache and hair, and
dressed in light grey clothes and yellow boots. On the face of it, the
trio were ill-assorted.
'Well, I should say,' Lavendale remarked, 'that the dark man in the
corner chair was a foreigner--a Russian, for choice. The other two
are, of course, American business men. The face of the big man seems
familiar to me.'
'You've probably seen his picture in the illustrated papers,' she told
him. 'That is Jacob P. Weald. He was once called, I believe, the
powder king.'
Lavendale nodded. His manner had become more interested.
'Of course,' he murmured. 'And that's Jenkins, the secretary to the
Weald Company. I wonder who the third man is?'
'His name is Ossendorf--the Baron Cyril Ossendorf. He is a _persona
grata_ at the Russian Embassy and he owns great estates in Poland.'
'Stop!' Lavendale exclaimed. 'This is getting interesting. He is
buying munitions, of course.'
'Marvellous!' she murmured.
'Don't chaff me--it's really interesting.'
'Yes,' she admitted, 'it is interesting even from its external point of
view. You are right. The Baron is probably giving, or has given, an
enormous order for ammunition. Yet there is something behind that
little conference, if only we could probe it, more interesting than you
would believe, my friend.'
She paused. He waited eagerly, but she was silent for an unusually
long time.
'You were suggesting,' he ventured to remind her, 'a few minutes ago,
that there was some way in which intervention----'
She leaned a little towards him. Her hand rested for a second upon his.
'I have come to the conclusion,' she said, speaking very softly, 'that
one of us, either you or I, must kill Ossendorf.'
He began to laugh and then stopped suddenly. A little shiver ran
through him. For a single second her face was almost the face of a
tigress. He felt that his laugh was a mistake.
'You are in earnest!' he muttered.
She rose from the table, gathered up her belongings and allowed him to
arrange her cloak about her shoulders.
'Except that I retract that possible alternative,' she said calmly. 'I
shall deal with Ossendorf myself.'
'But I don't understand,' he persisted.
'How should you?' she answered, smiling.
'By the by, where are we going? We spoke of a music hall, didn't we?'
'I have a box at the Empire,' he told her.
She was stepping by him into the taxi when she suddenly paused. Her
frame seemed to become rigid.
'The Empire,' he told the driver.
She turned suddenly around.
'Your rooms,' she directed. 'Tell him to drive at once to your rooms.'
He was startled, but he obeyed her without hesitation. A moment later
he took his place by her side.
'That valet of yours!' she exclaimed.
'What about him?'
'I told you that I knew his face. I have just remembered.'
'Well?'
'A year ago he was an attaché at the Japanese Embassy. His name is
Baron Komashi.'
Lavendale was mystified.
'Are you sure?' he asked incredulously.
'Perfectly certain,' she insisted.
'But why on earth should he be a friend of Perkins and willing to act
as my valet?'
'It's the eternal game,' she declared, 'and they are clever at it, too,
the Japs. Tell me, have you any papers of special value about just
now?'
'Yes, in my safe,' he admitted, 'but no one else has an idea of the
combination.'
'Combination!' she scoffed. 'Niko Komashi, too! Tell me, are these
papers political which you have inside that safe?'
'In a measure, yes!' he assented.
They had reached the street in which his rooms were situated.
'There is no light in my room,' he said, as they ascended the stairs.
'Niko must have done his work and gone home.'
'Yes,' she murmured, 'he has done his work, without a doubt. He has a
knack of doing that.'
Lavendale produced his latch-key. The rooms appeared to be empty and
in darkness. In the sitting-room he unlocked his safe and peered in.
One by one he examined his papers. Everything was in perfect order.
He turned back to his companion.
'Nothing has been disturbed,' he announced confidently.
She came over towards him, put her head for a moment inside the safe
and immediately withdrew it.
'Niko has been through these papers during your absence,' she declared.
'If everything is there, it is because he had no need to steal. He has
examined or made copies of what he chose.'
'How do you know this?' he asked incredulously.
'It is quite simple,' she explained. 'Even the cleverest man in the
world seems always to forget one thing. Niko forgot that his clothes
and fingers, even his breath, have always that peculiar Oriental
perfume. What is it like--half almond-blossom, half sandalwood?'
'I remember I noticed it when he came in,' Lavendale agreed quickly.
'Put your head inside that safe again,' she directed.
He obeyed at once. When he emerged, his face was troubled. He locked
the door mechanically.
'You are right,' he said.
They were silent for a moment. Lavendale was contemplating the lock in
a dazed manner. He turned to Suzanne. She had seated herself in his
easy-chair and had thrown back her cloak.
'You were going to tell me,' he reminded her, 'about this fellow Niko.
You had an idea about him.'
'Mine is no idea,' she replied. 'It is a certainty. The man who posed
this evening as your temporary valet, the man who in your absence has
opened your safe, why, it is Baron Niko Komashi. He belongs to one of
the most aristocratic families of Japan.'
'But he is a member of the Servants' Club!' Lavendale expostulated.
'He was a friend of Perkins--my servant!'
'Ostensibly,' she said dryly. 'He came over here as first secretary to
the Embassy. Then he disappeared. No one quite knew what had become
of him. I once had a suspicion. Now I know. You and I, my friend,
are bunglers at the game he plays.'
Once more Lavendale was looking at the lock--unscratched, bearing so
signs of having been tampered with.
'The thing is a miracle,' he muttered.
'Tell me--unless you would rather not,' she asked, leaning a little
forward, 'was there any document in that safe likely to be of
particular interest to the Japanese Secret Service?'
Lavendale's face was dark with mingled shame and humiliation.
'There was just the one document that should have been kept from them
at all costs,' he declared bitterly. 'Two years ago I wrote a series
of articles for an American Sunday paper upon our military
unpreparedness. I don't know that they did any particular good, but,
anyway, it's a subject I have studied closely. That paper I had my
fingers on just now contains every possible scrap of information as to
our standing army, our volunteer forces, our artillery, our possible
scheme of defence on the west and the east, our stock of munitions, and
our expenditure of same per thousand men. There was also an air and
naval report and a scheme for mining San Francisco Harbour.'
She leaned back in her chair and laughed.
'Most interesting! I can quite understand how Niko's eyes would gleam!
... What's that?'
She turned her head suddenly. Lavendale, too, had started, and with a
swift movement forward had touched the switch and plunged the room into
darkness. They heard the soft click of the latch and the opening and
closing of the front door. They heard the soft footsteps of the
intruder across the hall. The door of the room in which they were was
quietly opened and closed. Still with that same amazing stealthiness,
a small, dark figure crossed the room and stood before the safe. Then
there was a pause, several breathless moments of silence. Niko's
instinct was telling him that he was not alone. Once more Lavendale's
finger touched the switch and the lights blazed out. Niko was
standing, the knob of the safe in his hand, his head turned towards
them.
The sudden light had a common effect upon all of them. Suzanne for a
moment held her hand in front of her eyes. Niko blinked slightly.
Then he drew himself up to his full height of five feet four. He stood
in front of the safe with his eyes fixed upon Lavendale, something
about his face and attitude bearing a curious resemblance to a statue
carved in wax. Lavendale coughed.
'You remind me, Baron Komashi,' he said, 'of an old English
proverb--the pitcher that goes once too often to the well, you know.
Was it something you had forgotten that brought you back? No, stay
where you are, please.'
Niko remained motionless. Lavendale moved to a long, open cupboard
which stood against the wall, opened it and groped about amongst its
contents for a moment. Then he swung the door to and slipped some
cartridges into the little revolver which he had taken from the top
shelf. Niko's muscles suddenly seemed to relax. Ever so slightly he
shrugged his shoulders. It was the gesture of a supreme philosophy.
'There's no need for a row,' Lavendale went on. 'The game you and I
are playing at, Baron Komashi, requires finesse rather than muscle. By
a stroke of genius you have read a certain document in that safe. That
document is naturally of interest to the representative of the one
country with whom America might possibly quarrel.'
Niko bowed his sleek head.
'I have read the document,' he confessed. 'It was my business here to
read it. And now?'
'There you have me,' Lavendale admitted. 'It is a document, without a
doubt, of great interest to you, and your Government will highly
appreciate a résumé of its contents. At the same time, the only way to
stop your making use of your information is to kill you.'
The man's face was like the face of a sphinx. Suzanne leaned a little
further back in her chair and crossed her legs.
'It is a fortunate century in which you pursue your career, Baron,' she
observed, 'and perhaps a fortunate country. These little qualms about
human life which I can clearly see are influencing Mr. Lavendale,
scarcely exist, even now, amongst your people, do they?'
'We are as yet,' Niko replied suavely, 'free, I am thankful to say,
from the cowardice of the west.'
'If I asked you for your word of honour,' Lavendale continued, 'that
you would not use that information?
'I might give it you,' Niko acknowledged, 'but my country's service is
a higher thing than my personal honour, therefore it would do you no
good. I shall be frank with you. There is no way you can prevent my
report being duly made except by killing me. I am here, a
self-confessed robber. If I were in your place, I should shoot.'
'The cowardice of the west, you see,' Lavendale remarked, throwing his
revolver upon the table. 'You had better get out of the room. I might
change my mind.'
For a moment Niko made no movement. Suzanne rose to her feet and lit a
cigarette.
'As a matter of curiosity,' she asked, 'tell us why you returned,
Baron?'
He bowed.
'The Empire performance is not over until half-past eleven,' he
explained, 'and it is barely ten o'clock. I had some faint misgivings
as to the resetting of the lock. I came back to examine it. That is
my answer. You speak now of curiosity. I, too, have curiosity. Will
you tell me how you knew that I had opened the safe?'
She smiled and lifted her handkerchief for a moment to her lips.
Niko's head was bent as though in humiliation.
'It is so hard to outgrow one's errors,' he sighed.
He looked towards Lavendale and Lavendale pointed impatiently towards
the door. He took a step or two in that direction, then he paused.
'Sir,' he said, looking back, 'because your methods are not mine,
believe me that I still can appreciate their mistaken chivalry. The
information I have gained I shall use. No promise of mine to the
contrary would avail you. But there is, perhaps, some return which I
might offer, more valuable, perhaps, to mademoiselle, yet of some
import to you also.'
Suzanne leaned a little forward. Her cigarette burnt idly between her
fingers.
'In this great conflict,' Niko continued, 'whose reverberations shake
the earth, Japan watches from afar off. There are few who know the
reason, but there is a reason. Let that pass. My country lays no seal
upon my lips. What I know I pass on to you. A hundred million
cartridges and five thousand tons of heavier ammunition, which might
otherwise have reached Russia, are lying now at the bottom of the
ocean. This is the doing of one man, a man in the pay of Germany, a
man who is the greatest traitor the world has ever known.'
'Ossendorf!' Suzanne cried.
Niko bowed and moved towards the door.
'Mademoiselle has suspected, perhaps,' he concluded. 'It is I who can
assure her that her suspicions are just. The greatest plant in America
is kept producing munitions by day and night, bought with Russian gold
but never meant to reach their destination. It is well?'
He looked at Lavendale, his hand upon the door. Lavendale nodded
curtly.
'It is well,' he said.
* * * * *
Mr. Jacob P. Weald smoothed out the document which he had been
examining and drew a deep sigh of satisfaction.
'Say, Ed,' he remarked, turning to his secretary, who was smoking a
cigar at the other end of the room, 'that's worth a cool million apiece
for us, that contract.'
'Hope there's no hitch,' the other replied anxiously. 'What's this
young fellow from the Embassy want?'
'Nothing to hurt us,' Weald assured him. 'We're all right with the
authorities all round. I'm glad, Ed, we did the square thing. We've
had it straight from the British War Office to go right along ahead and
give Russia everything we can turn out. Well, Russia's going to have
it, and, by gum, there's enough ammunition provided for in that
contract to make mincemeat of the whole German Army!'
There was a knock at the door of the sitting-room and a servant
announced Mr. Ambrose Lavendale. Lavendale, following closely behind,
shook hands at once with the two men.
'I've heard of your plant, Mr. Weald,' he said pleasantly. 'Wonderful
things you've been doing in the way of producing ammunition, they tell
me. Been unlucky some with your shipments, though, haven't you?'
'That's so,' the other admitted, 'but that's not our fault. We don't
come in there. Our friends have their own steamships, eleven of them,
bought for the job.'
'Lost two out of three already, haven't they?' Lavendale remarked.
'Say, you seem some wise, young man,' Mr. Weald said pleasantly.
'However, I got the note from the boss. What can we do for you?'
'A very small thing,' Lavendale replied. 'I understand that Baron
Ossendorf is coming here to sign that contract at twelve o'clock.'
'You're dead right, sir,' Mr. Weald admitted, 'and there's a magnum of
the best standing there in the ice, waiting for the psychological
moment.'
'Mind my being present and asking him one question--just one?'
Lavendale inquired.
'We ain't likely to object to anything you want to do, young fellow,'
Mr. Weald assured him. 'Ed Jenkins there--he's secretary of the
company--and I, have got no crooked ideas about this business. We are
going to bring a few million dollars into our own pockets, but we are
going to do it on the straight. What our Ambassador over here says,
goes, and his note asks us to take you into this.'
There was a knock at the door. Ossendorf was announced and promptly
entered. He held out a hand each to Weald and Jenkins. Then he
glanced inquiringly at Lavendale.
'This is a young friend of ours from the American Embassy,' Mr. Weald
explained. 'Mr. Ambrose Lavendale--Baron Ossendorf. He's a kind of
witness that all's right and above-board.'
Baron Ossendorf bowed and held out his long, elegantly-shaped hand.
'I am delighted, Mr. Lavendale,' he said, 'delighted that you should be
a participator in our little business this morning. Between Russia and
America there have always been the most cordial sentiments of
friendship. It is a pleasure to us to think that we are able, at these
terrible times, to be of service to one another.... You have the
contract, Mr. Weald? Ah!' he added, glancing at it through his
eyeglass, 'I see that this is the draft which I have already perused.
Nothing remains, then, but for me to sign it.'
He dipped his pen in the ink, stooped down and there was a moment's
silence whilst his pen spluttered across the paper. Mr. Weald began to
cut the strings of the magnum of champagne.
'Just one moment,' Lavendale interposed. 'There is a little condition,
Baron, which it is not proposed to put officially into the agreement, a
very small matter, but may I suggest it to you?'
Ossendorf turned his head. His eyes had narrowed a little.
'By all means, sir.'
'The contract,' Lavendale continued slowly, 'is for the whole
production of the Weald Plant for six months, with option of
continuance until the end of the war. Shipments are to be made weekly
by steamers whose names are given there, steamers practically acquired
by the Russian Government.'
'You are well informed, my young friend,' Ossendorf admitted quietly.
'It has been suggested,' Lavendale said, speaking slowly and looking
Ossendorf in the face, 'that you should change the wireless operator on
all those vessels for a person approved by the British Government.'
There was a moment's deep silence. Mr. Weald had paused with his knife
already pressed against the last string of the bottle. Jenkins was
standing with his mouth open, a little dazed. Ossendorf shrank back as
though he had received a blow. It was obvious that he retained his
composure with an effort.
'What do you mean?' he demanded.
'Simply this,' Lavendale replied firmly. 'Already the _Iris_ and the
_Southern Star_, with enough ammunition on board to have supplied an
army, have gone to the bottom. I mean, sir, that every one of those
remaining nine boats on which is to be packed the whole production of
the greatest ammunition plant in America, is doomed to go to the
bottom.'
Two great drops of sweat had broken out on Ossendorf's forehead. His
face seemed suddenly to have grown thinner. His mouth was open. He
glared at Lavendale, but he was utterly incapable of speech. The
latter turned to Weald.
'Mr. Weald,' he said, 'this contract for your entire output can be
signed within twenty-four hours, either by a representative of Russia
other than Baron Ossendorf, or by the secretary of the British Munition
Board. This man Ossendorf is a paid traitor--the Judas of the war.'
Mr. Weald was incapable of coherent speech.
'You mean,' Jenkins faltered, 'that he is in the pay of Germany?'
'Ask him!' Lavendale suggested scornfully.
Ossendorf seemed to wither up. He staggered to his feet and groped to
the door. Suddenly something flashed in his hands, clasped tightly
between them. There was a loud report, the room seemed filled with
smoke. They all three looked in a dazed manner at the figure stretched
upon the carpet, face downwards, the shoulders still twitching
slightly. Lavendale stood with his finger upon the bell.
'Sorry to have interfered, Mr. Weald,' he said, 'but your stuff's
wanted somewhere else--not at the bottom of the sea.' ...
Ossendorf's body was carried away. It was very well understood that
the matter was to be hushed up. Lavendale lingered with Mr. Weald, who
was walking restlessly about the room, still scarcely able to realize
what had happened.
'Poor devil!' he kept on muttering. 'Poor devil!'
Lavendale laid his hand firmly upon his compatriot's shoulder.
'Look here, Mr. Weald,' he said, 'there are good and bad of every
nation--Germans, Americans, English, or French. This man was outside
the pale. He was a black and dastardly traitor, the pariah of
humanity, he trafficked with the lives of human beings, he was a
murderer for gold. If anything, his end was too merciful.'
Mr. Weald nodded reflectively. Lavendale's words were convincing. His
eyes wandered towards the champagne bottle upon the sideboard. He was
feeling the strain.
'In that case,' he murmured, 'perhaps----'