Pamela's first shock of surprise did not readily pass. In the first
place, John Lutchester's appearance in America at all was entirely
unexpected. In the second, by what possible means could he have arrived
at this precise and psychological moment?
"You!" she exclaimed, a little helplessly. "Mr. Lutchester!"
He smiled as he shook hands. Nikasti had slipped noiselessly from the
room. Pamela made no effort to detain him. She had a curious feeling
that the things which had passed between them concerned their two
selves only. So had no desire whatever to hand him over to retributive
justice.
"You are surprised," he observed. "So far as my presence here is
concerned, I knew quite well that I was coming some time ago, but it
was one of those matters, you understand, Miss Van Teyl, that one is
scarcely at liberty to talk about. I am here in connection with my
work."
"Your work," she repeated weakly. "I thought that you were in the
Ministry of Munitions?"
"Precisely," he admitted. "I have a travelling inspectorship. You see,
I don't mind telling you this, but it is just as well, if you will
forgive my mentioning it, Miss Van Teyl, that these things are 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 surprised 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 inopportune--I could not quite tell which.
Were you in any way troubled or embarrassed by the presence 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 him. He seemed entirely free from any mental
pressure or the wear and tear of great events.
"Golf?" she repeated wonderingly. "You expect 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 altogether 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.
"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."
"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
slightest 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 starting. 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 himself.
"Tell me now," she begged, "about Captain Graham?"
"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 observed.
"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 invention. 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.
"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 Atlantic, 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 suppose 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 Northumberland."
"Shot?" she exclaimed incredulously.
"Murdered, if you'd like the whole thrill," Lutchester 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 profoundly 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."
"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 behaviour 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--Mefiez-vous! Taisez-vous! Les oreilles
ennemies vous ecoutent!?"
"Of course I do," he assented.
"Do you remember Baron Sunyea making a remark 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."
"Have you got it?" he asked abruptly.
"If I had," she smiled, "I should not tell you."
"But come," he expostulated, "the thing's no use to you."
"So Baron Sunyea evidently thought," she laughed. "We'll leave that, if
you don't mind."
Lutchester was still looking a little bewildered.
"I had an idea when I came in," he muttered, "that things were a little
scrappy between you and the Japanese gentleman."
She was suddenly serious.
"Now that I have told you the truth," she said, "I really ought to
thank you. You certainly seem to have a knack of appearing when you are
wanted."
"Fluke this time, I'm afraid," he acknowledged, "but I rather like the
suggestion. You ought to see a great deal of me, Miss Van Teyl. Do you
realise that I am a stranger in New York, and any hospitality you can
show me may be doubly rewarded? Are you going to take me round and show
me the sights?"
"Are you going to have any time for sight-seeing?"
"Well, I hope so. Why not? A fellow can't do more than a certain number
of hours' work in a day."
She looked at him curiously.
"And yet," she murmured, "you expect to win the war!"
"Of course we shall win the war," he assured her confidently. "You
haven't any doubt about that yourself, have you, Miss Van Teyl?"
"I don't know," she told him calmly.
Lutchester was almost horrified. He rose to his feet and stood looking
down at his companion.
"Tell me what on earth you mean?" he demanded. "We always win in the
long run, even if we muddle things about a little."
"I was just contrasting in my mind," she said thoughtfully, "some of
the Germans whom I have met since the war, with some of the Englishmen.
They are taking it very seriously, you know, Mr. Lutchester. They don't
find time for luncheon parties or sight-seeing."
"That's just their way," he protested. "They turn themselves into
machines. They are what we used to call suckers at school, but you can
take my word for it that before next autumn they will be on the run."
"You call them suckers," she observed. "That's because they're always
working, always studying, always experimenting. Supposing they got hold
of something like this new explosive?"
"First of all," he told her, "I don't believe in it, and secondly, if
it exists, the formula isn't in their hands."
"Supposing it is in mine?" she suggested. "I might sell it to them."
"I'd trust you all the time," he laughed lightheartedly. "I can't see
you giving a leg up to the Huns.... Will you lunch with me at one
o'clock to-morrow, please?"
"Certainly not," she replied. "You must attend to your work, whatever
it is."
"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.