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 cocktail, sir."
Fischer accepted the glass 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 cocktail, 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 cocktails. Fischer smiled as he raised his glass
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 glass. 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 passion 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 partition 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 glass.
"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 Ambassador 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 Massachusetts,
has turned slowly towards the cause of our enemies. Washington is
hopelessly against us. The huge supplies which leave these shores 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 ejaculations. 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 assure 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 glass.
"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."
No one hesitated. Possibly ruin stared them in the face, but not one
flinched. Their heads drew closer together. They discussed the ways and
means of the new campaign.
"We must add largely to our numbers," Von Schwerin said, "and we had
better have a fund. So far as regards money, I take it for granted--"
There was a little chorus of fierce whispers. Five million dollars were
subscribed by men who were willing, if necessary, to find fifty.
"It is enough," their leader assured them. "Much of our labours will be
amongst those to whom money is no object. Only remember, all of you,
this. We shall be a society without a written word, with no roll of
membership, without documents or institution, for complicity in the
things which follow will mean ruin. You are willing to face that?"
Again that strange, passionate instinct of unanimity prevailed. To all
appearance it was a gathering of commonplace, commercialised and
bourgeois, easy-living men, but the touch of the spirit was there.
Fischer leaned a little forward.
"In two months' time," he said, "every factory in America which is
earning its blood money shall be in danger. There will be a reign of
terror. Each State will operate independently and secretly."
"Our friend Fischer," Von Schwerin told them, "has promised to stay
over here for the present to organise this undertaking. I, alas! am
bound to remain always a little aloof, but the time may come, and very
soon, too, when I shall be a free lance. On that day I shall throw my
lot in with yours, to the last drop of my blood and the last hour of my
liberty. Until then, trust Oscar Fischer. He has done great deeds
already. He will show you the way to more."
Fischer took off his spectacles and wiped them.
"Our first proceeding," he said, "sounds paradoxical. It must be that
we cease to exist. There can be no longer any meetings amongst us who
stand in this country for Germany. Gatherings of this sort are
finished. We meet, one or two of us, perhaps, by accident, in the clubs
and in the streets, in our houses and perhaps in the restaurants, but
the bond which unites us, and which no human power could ever sever
because it is of the spirit, that bond from to-night is intangible.
Wait, all of you, for a message. The task given to each shall not be
too great."
Mr. Max H. Bookam, a little black-bearded man who had started life
tailoring in a garret, and was now a multi-millionaire, raised his
glass.
"No task shall seem too great," he muttered. "No risk shall make us
afraid. Even the exile shall take up his burden."