It was well past ten o’clock that morning before Don and Red were roused
from a four-hour nap in the local Intelligence Office. After breakfast,
they were fitted out with clothes quickly tailored to fit, in
preparation for their new roles. Then, for several more hours they were
drilled, each man in his part, so as to make the disguise as perfect as
possible.
Don Winslow had already memorized all the real Count Borg could teach
him. Now, working from photographs, and from a mass of information
collected by the office, other Intelligence operatives expertly polished
his likeness to the captured Scorpion aviator.
Poor Red was made to study much harder for his role of valet, since he
had to start from scratch. At the end of six hours’ unremitting work, he
was pronounced a “passable fake” and sent out to take rooms for his
master at the Hotel Empire.
Somewhat later Don Winslow joined him. True to the dressy habits of
Count André Borg, he had to change from the natty homespun business suit
he was wearing into formal “soup-and-fish.”
While he was adjusting his black bow tie, there came a rap on the door.
Red Pennington, now transformed into the valet “Penny,” opened it with a
flourish.
“Please step inside, sir!” Don heard him say. “I believe you are
expected.”
“Excellent, Pennington! Excellent!” came Hammond’s approving chuckle.
“You’re getting more stiffnecked and manservantish every minute. Shut
that door, now, and let’s have a few final words.”
“Yes, sir! Very good, sir!” chanted Red, looking down his rather stubby
nose. “But may I take your hat and coat first, sir?”
Grinning broadly, Hammond spun a chair away from the wall and sat down
on it.
“The Lieutenant’s eaten his part like an old actor!” he remarked. “But
how about you, Commander? Do you feel able to deceive the bright eyes of
the fair Scorpion spy who’ll be sitting across the table from you in
about ten minutes? They say a woman’s instinct is foolproof. Of course,
that may be all nonsense, but I’ve seen some queer things happen in this
Intelligence game.”
Don finished buttoning his vest, and let Penny adjust his Tuxedo jacket.
“No, Hammond,” he smiled, “I don’t feel nervous about meeting Lotus’
inspection. That’s queer, too, because it is probably the toughest test
I’ll have to pass. I’ve got a funny hunch about that young woman!”
“What do you mean—hunch?” growled Hammond, with a piercing look. “You
haven’t had time to learn anything new about her. Listen, Commander!
Just because the kid is as attractive as they make ’em, you musn’t go
off the deep end. Keep your head, man, and remember the lovelier she
looks the more dangerous she’s bound to be!”
Don’s hearty laugh wiped some of the worry from Hammond’s gloomy face.
“I’m certainly not going to fall in love with her, if that’s what you
mean!” he promised. “But seriously, I _have_ a hunch that if she found
out who I really am, she would be sport enough to give me a break. My
masquerade would be finished, but not necessarily my life. Understand?”
Hammond got up from his chair, frowning.
“I understand, but I don’t agree,” he said heavily. “The minute you come
within speaking distance of a Scorpion spy in that disguise, your life’s
in danger. The second you’re discovered, it’ll probably be curtains
whether pretty little Lotus or some squint-eyed thug puts out your
light. Well, I won’t be keeping you any longer. Luck, Commander! And for
the luvva Mike, _watch your step_!”
Red’s good-by warning was similar to Hammond’s, but even more heartfelt.
His right hand still half paralyzed by the husky “Penny’s” grip, Don
Winslow walked quickly to the hotel elevator.
Somewhat to his surprise, the operator greeted him respectfully as
“Count Borg” showing that the real count was well known to the Empire
staff. Don decided that he would indeed have to “watch his step”!
Lotus, he recalled, had mentioned a certain table in a corner of the
dining room, where she had met the real count on past occasions. If she
should not be there waiting for him, Don would be in a fix. He could not
pick the wrong table to wait for _her_, without making her suspicious.
As he hesitated just outside the dining room, the headwaiter spotted him
and came forward quickly.
“Ah, Count Borg! It is good to have you with us again after so long an
absence!” the man murmured with his most unctuous smile. “Is it perhaps
that you are expecting Mademoiselle Lotus this evening? If so, your
table in the corner is reserved for you.”
With a low bow, the headwaiter led the way to a softly lighted alcove,
somewhat apart from the main dining room. It held one small table
suitable for two persons. The service included a single candle set in a
beautifully ornamented silver candlestick.
Barely had the headwaiter pulled out Don’s chair, when his alert eye
caught a movement across the larger room.
“_Eh, voilà, M’sieu le Comte!_” he exclaimed delightedly. “Here is the
so charming Mademoiselle already! You will not have to wait.”
Hurrying away, he was back in a moment, followed by a dainty figure
dressed in clinging white satin. Lotus had made herself particularly
charming this evening, Don told himself. The pure simplicity of her low
cut gown, made her seem even younger than her actual twenty years.
Slipping the expensive evening wrap from her shoulders, she flicked it
carelessly across the headwaiter’s arm.
“Come back in a few minutes, Maurice!” she said, as the man bowed
himself away.
Turning to Don, she gave him a long, serious look. Her eyes, Don
thought, were like great wells of darkness. As the seconds ticked past,
and she did not speak, he felt a tiny shiver of doubt. Was it possible,
he wondered, that the girl had already pierced his masquerade?
All at once she came closer, with a low musical laugh.
“Always mysterious, aren’t you, André?” she said, taking both his hands.
“Every time I meet you here, it is the same! You stand looking at me so
silent and grave, until I feel like a silly little girl. But in the end
I always succeed in making you laugh and be silly with me, don’t I,
André?”
With some difficulty Don held his serious pose. Lotus’ teasing laughter
and girlish sweetness were harder to resist than he had expected.
“Sit down, child!” he said soberly, as he moved to pull out her chair.
“A strange thing has happened since I last saw you. You _say_ I am the
same André. But it is hardly the truth!”
As he sat down across the table he saw that the girl’s cheeks had gone
white as her dress. Her eyes, wide with sudden alarm, seemed about to
overflow with tears.
“I—I don’t understand you!” she whispered faintly.
For an instant, Don found it hard to go on. This child opposite him
might be a Scorpion spy, even one of the cleverest, but tonight she was
simply a girl in love. A very young girl, who had clearly laid her heart
at the feet of her hero, Count André Borg. And Don, the pseudo André,
was going to hurt her feelings cruelly.
It was a tough job, the young commander told himself, but it had to be
done. In the United States Navy’s war against the warmakers, sometimes
the innocent had to suffer.
Bending forward, Don pushed away the sleek, dark hair just above his
temple, to show the neatly taped head wound.
“That happened during the attack on the Navy gunboat, five days ago,” he
said grimly. “A machine gun bullet ripped through my seaplane and
grooved my skull. It was Don Winslow himself who pulled me out of the
water, after the plane cracked up—or so they tell me. I woke up in the
brig some hours later, too dazed to know if I was afloat or ashore.
Gradually my mind cleared. _But my memory has been skipping cogs ever
since!_”
Slowly the look of fright left Lotus’ face. Two large tears trickled
down each side of her pretty nose, but her lips smiled tenderly.
“My poor André!” she cried, softly. “It must make you feel queer—as if
you were someone else—to have your memory 'skip cogs’! But that is
certain to cure itself! After all your brain is not like the gears of a
car that have to be thrown away when they are broken. You remember _me_!
Very soon you will recall everything. In the meantime, let Lotus be your
memory, dear André!”
As Don Winslow gazed into her eager, pleading little face, he felt like
kicking himself. Only the fact that duty came before sentiment kept him
from blurting out the whole true story, then and there.
“Very well, child!” he said, glancing down at his newly manicured
fingernails. “I certainly hope you are right about my mind clearing up
in time; but right now I am finding this loss of memory pretty awkward.
For instance, who is that large, Oriental person coming toward us? He
looks as if he knew me, all right, but I can’t name him, for the life of
me!”
“Cho-San!” came Lotus’ gasp. “Why, André! You don’t even remember ... my
guardian? The greatest power in all Scorpia, next to the master? Oh,
this is terrible! You must _pretend_ to remember Cho-San, whatever else
you’ve forgotten, André!”