“Has there been any telegram from him?—any news as to the cause of his non-return?” Fischer persisted.
“I believe that Mr. Kaye, his secretary, has some information, sir,” the man admitted. “Perhaps you would like to see him.”
Fischer did not hesitate, and was conducted at once to the study in which Mr. Bookam was wont to indulge in various nefarious Stock Exchange adventures. The room was occupied on this occasion by a dejected-looking young man, with pasty face and gold spectacles. The apartment, as Fischer was quick to notice, showed signs of a strange disorder.
“Where’s Mr. Bookam?” he asked quickly.
The young man walked to the door, shook it to be sure that it was closed, and came back again. His tone was ominous, almost dramatic.
“In the State Prison at——, sir,” he announced.
“What for?” Fischer demanded, breathing a little thickly.
“I have no certain information,” the secretary replied, with a noncommittal air. “All I know is that I had a long-distance telephone to burn certain documents, but before I could do so the room and the house were searched by New York detectives, whose warrant it was useless to resist.”
“But what’s the charge against Mr. Bookam?”
“It’s something to do with the disasters in——,” the young man confided. “The Governor of the State, who is Mr. Bookam’s cousin, is in the same trouble…. Better sit down a moment, sir. You’re looking white.”
Mr. Fischer threw himself into an easy-chair. He felt like a man who has built a mighty piece of machinery, has set it swinging through space, and watches now its imminent collapse; watches some tiny but ghastly flaw, pregnant with disaster, growing wider and wider before his eyes.
“What papers did the police take away with them?” he asked.
“There wasn’t very much for them,” the secretary replied. “There was a list of the names of the proposed organisation which, owing to your very wise intervention, was never formed. There was a list of factories throughout the United States in which munitions are being made, with a black mark against those holding the most important contracts. And there was a letter from Governor Roughton.”
“Mr. Bookam hasn’t drawn any cheques lately for large amounts?” Fischer inquired eagerly.
“There are three in his private cheque-book, sir, the counterfoils of which are not filled in,” was the somewhat dreary admission.
Fischer groaned as he received the news.
“Have you any idea about those cheques?” he demanded.
“I am afraid,” the other acknowledged, “that Mr. Bookam was not very discreet. I reminded him of your advice—that the money should be passed through Sullivan—but he didn’t seem to think it worth while.”
“Look here, let me know the worst at once,” Fischer insisted. “Do you believe that any one of those cheques was made payable to any of the men who are under arrest?”
“I am afraid,” the secretary declared sadly, “that the proceeds of one were found on the person of Ed. Swindles, intact.”
Fischer sat for a moment with his head buried in his hands. “That any man could have been such a fool. An organisation would have been a thousand times safer. Max Bookam was only a very worthy and industrious clothing manufacturer, with an intense love for the Fatherland and a great veneration for all her institutions. What he had done, he had done whole-heartedly but foolishly. He was a man who should never have been trusted for a moment in the game. After all, the pawns count….”
Fischer took his leave and reached his hotel a little before midnight. Already he had begun to look over his shoulder in the street. He found his rooms empty with a sense of relief, marred by one little disappointment. Nikasti was to have been there to bid him farewell— Nikasti on his way back to Japan. He ascertained from the office of the hotel that there had been no telephone message or caller. Then he turned to his correspondence, some presentiment already clutching at his strained nerves. There was a letter in a large envelope, near the bottom of the pile, addressed to him in Nikasti’s fine handwriting. He tore open the envelope, and slow horror seized him as he realised its contents. A long photograph unrolled itself before his eyes. The first few words brought confusion and horror to his sense. His brain reeled. This was defeat, indeed! It was a photograph of that other autograph letter. The one which he had given to Nikasti to carry to Japan lay— gross sacrilege!— about him in small pieces. There was no other line, no message, nothing but this damning proof of his duplicity.
A kind of mental torture seized him. He fought like a caged man for some way out. Every sort of explanation occurred to him only to be rejected, every sort of subterfuge, only to be cast aside with a kind of ghastly contempt. He felt suddenly stripped bare. His tongue could serve him no more. He snatched at the telephone receiver and rang up the number for which he searched eagerly through the book.
“Is that the office of the American Steamship Company?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What time will the New York sail?”
“In three-quarters of an hour. Who’s speaking?”
“Mr. Oscar Fischer. Keep anything you have for me.”
He threw down the receiver for fear of a refusal, packed a few things feverishly in a dressing bag, dashed the rest of his correspondence into his pocket, and with the bag in one hand, and an overcoat over the other arm, he hastened out into the street. He was obliged at first to board a street car. Afterwards he found a taxicab, and drove under the great wooden shed as the last siren was blowing. He hurried up the gangway, a grim, remorseful figure, a sense of defeat gnawing at his heart, a bitter, haunting fear still with him even when, with a shriek of the tugs, the great steamer swung into the river. He was leaving forever the work to which he had given so much of his life, leaving it a fugitive and dishonoured. The blaze of lights, the screaming of the great ferry-boats, all the triumphant, brazen noises of the mighty city, sounded like a requiem to him as in the darkest part of the promenade deck he leaned over the railing and nursed his agony, the supreme agony of an ambitious man—failure.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Table of Contents
“What has become,” Mrs. Theodore Hastings asked her niece one afternoon about a month later, “of your delightful friend, Mr. Lutchester?”
Pamela laid down her book and looked across at her aunt with wide-open eyes.
“Why, I thought you didn’t like him, aunt?”
“I cannot remember saying so, my dear,” Mrs. Hastings replied. “I had nothing against the man himself. It was simply his attitude with regard to some of your uncle’s plans, of which we disapproved.”
Pamela nodded. They were seated on the piazza of the Hastings’ country house at Manchester.
“I see!… And uncle’s plans,” she went on reflectively, “have become a little changed, haven’t they?”
Mrs. Hastings coughed.
“There is no doubt,” she admitted, “that your Uncle Theodore was inveigled into supporting, to a certain extent, a party whose leaders have shown themselves utterly irresponsible. The moment these horrible things began to come out, however, your uncle finally cut himself loose from them.”
“Very wise of him,” Pamela murmured.
“Who could have believed,” Mrs. Hastings demanded, “that men like Oscar Fischer, Max Bookam and a dozen other well-known and prominent millionaires, would have stooped to encourage the destruction of American property and lives, simply through blind devotion to the country of their birth. I could understand,” she went on, “both your uncle and I perfectly understood that their sympathies were German rather than English, but we shared a common belief that notwithstanding this they were Americans first and foremost. It was in this belief that your uncle was led into temporary association with them.”
“Bad luck,” Pamela sighed. “I am afraid it hasn’t done Uncle Theodore any good.”
Mrs. Hastings went on with her knitting for a moment.
“My child,
” she said, “it has probably imperilled, if it has not completely ruined, one of the great hopes which your uncle and I have sometimes entertained. We are both of us, however, quite philosophical about it. Even at this moment I am convinced that if these men had acted with discretion, and been content to wield political influence rather than to have resorted to such fanatical means, they would have represented a great power at the next election. As things are, I admit that their cause is lost for the time. I believe that your uncle is contemplating an early visit to England. He is of the opinion that perhaps he has misunderstood the Allied point of view, and he is going to study matters at first hand.”
Pamela nodded.
“I think he is very wise, aunt,” she declared. “I quite expect that he will come back a warm advocate of the Allies. No one would have a ghost of a chance who went to the country here on the other ticket.”
“I believe that that is your uncle’s point of view,” Mrs. Hastings assented…. “Why don’t you ask Mr. Lutchester down for a couple of days?”
“If you mean it, I certainly will,” Pamela agreed.
“Quite incidentally,” her aunt continued, “I heard the nicest possible things about him in Washington. Lady Ridlingshawe told me that the Lutchesters are one of the oldest families in England. He is a cousin of the Duke of Worcester, and is extraordinarily well connected in other directions. I must say he has a most distinguished appearance. A well-bred Englishman is so different from these foreigners.”
Pamela laid down her book and drew her writing block towards her.
“I’ll write and invite him down at once,” she suggested.
“Your uncle will be delighted,” Mrs. Hastings purred….
Lutchester received his invitation in New York and arrived in Manchester three days later. Pamela met him at the station with a couple of boatmen by her side.
“If you wouldn’t mind sailing home?” she proposed. “The house is practically on an island, and the tide is just right. These men will take your luggage.”
They walked down to the little dock together.
Pamela talked all the time, but Lutchester was curiously tongue-tied.
“You’ll find Uncle Theodore, and aunt, too, most amusing,” she confided. “It is perfectly obvious that there is nothing uncle regrets so much as his temporary linking up with Fischer and his friends; in fact, he is going to Europe almost at once—I am convinced for no other reason than to give him an excuse, upon his return, for blossoming out as a fervent supporter of the Allies.”
“Are you going too?” Lutchester inquired. “Shall I? Well, I am not really sure,” she declared, as they reached the little wooden dock. “I suppose I shall, especially if I can find something to do. I may even turn nurse.”
“You will be able to find plenty to do,” he assured her. “If nothing else turns up, you can help me.”
They stepped on to the yacht. Pamela, a radiant vision in white, with white flannel skirt, white jersey and tam-o’-shanter, took the helm, and was busy for a few moments getting clear. Afterwards she leaned back amongst the cushions, with Lutchester by her side.
“In the agitation of missing that buoy,” he reminded her, “you forgot to answer my last suggestion.”
“Is there any way in which I could help you?” she asked.
“You can help me in the greatest of all ways,” he replied promptly. “You can give me just that help which only the woman who cares can give to the man who cares for her, and if that isn’t exciting enough,” he went on, after a moment’s pause, “well, I dare say I can find you some work in the censor’s department.”
“Isn’t censoring a little dull?” she murmured.
“Then you choose—”
Her hand slipped into his. A little breeze filled their sails at that moment. The wonderful blue water of the bay sparkled with a million gleams of sunshine. Lutchester drew a great breath of content.
“That’s aunt on the landing-stage, watching us through her glasses,” Pamela pointed out, making a feeble attempt to withdraw her hand.
“It will save us the trouble,” he observed, resisting her effort, “of explanations.”
Lutchester found his host and hostess unexpectedly friendly. They even accepted with cheerful philosophy the news that Lutchester’s work in America was almost finished for the time, and that Pamela was to accompany him to Europe almost immediately. After dinner, when the two men were left at the table, Hastings became almost confidential.
“So far as regards the sympathies of this country, Mr. Lutchester,” he said, “the final die has been cast within the last few weeks. There has always been,” he proceeded, “a certain irritation existing between even the Anglo-Saxon Americans and your country. We have fancied so often that you have adopted little airs of superiority towards us, and that your methods of stating your intentions have not always taken account of our own little weaknesses. Then America, you know, loves a good fight, and the Germans are a wonderful military people. They were fighting like giants whilst you in England were still slacking. But it is Germany herself, or rather her sons and friends, who have destroyed her chances for her. Fischer, for instance,” he went on, fingering his wineglass. “I have always looked upon Oscar Fischer as a brilliant and far-seeing man. He was one of those who set themselves deliberately to win America for the Germans. A more idiotic bungle than he has made of things I could scarcely conceive. He has reproduced the diplomatic methods which have made Germany unpopular throughout the world. He has tried bullying, cajolery, and false-hood, and last of all he has plunged into crime. No German-American will henceforth ever have weight in the counsels of this country. I do not mind confessing,” Mr. Hastings continued, as he himself filled his guest’s glass and then his own, “that I myself was at one time powerfully attracted towards the Teuton cause. They are a nation wonderful in science, wonderful in warfare, with strong and admirable national characteristics. Yet they are going to lose this war through sheer lack of tact, for the want of that kindliness, that generosity of temperament, which exists and makes friends in nations as in individuals. The world for Germany, you know, and hell for her enemies!… But I am keeping you.”
Lutchester drank his wine and rose to his feet.
“Pamela is sitting on the rocks there,” Mr. Hastings observed. “I think that she wants to sail you over to Misery Island. We get some unearthly meal there at ten o’clock and come back by moonlight. It is a sort of torture which we always inflict upon our guests. My wife and I will follow in the launch.”
“To Misery Island!” Lutchester repeated.
His host smiled as he led the way to the piazza steps. Pamela had already stepped into the boat, and with the help of a boatman was adjusting the sail. She waved her hand gaily and pointed to the level stretch of placid water, still faintly brilliant in the dying sunlight.
“You think that we shall reach Misery Island before the tide turns?” she called out.
Lutchester stepped lightly into the boat and took the place to which she pointed.
“I am content,” he said, “to take my chance.”
THE END
THE BOX WITH BROKEN SEALS
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII<
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CHAPTER I
Table of Contents
James Crawshay, Englishman of the type usually described in transatlantic circles as “some Britisher,” lolled apparently at his ease upon the couch of the too-resplendent sitting room in the Hotel Magnificent, Chicago. Hobson, his American fellow traveler, on the other hand, betrayed his anxiety by his nervous pacing up and down the apartment. Both men bore traces in their appearance of the long journey which they had only just completed.
“I think,” Crawshay decided, yawning, “that I shall have a bath. I feel gritty, and my collar—heavens, what a sight! Your trains, Hobson, may be magnificent, but your coal is filthy. I will have a bath while your friend, the policeman, makes up his mind whether to come and see us or not.”
His companion treated the suggestion with scant courtesy.
“You will do nothing of the sort,” was his almost fierce objection. “We’ve got to wait right here until Chief of Police Downs comes along. There’s something crooked about this business, something I don’t understand, and the sooner we get to the bottom of it, the better.”
The Englishman pacified himself with a whisky and soda which a waiter had just brought in. He added several lumps of ice and drained the contents of the tumbler with a little murmur of appreciation.
“It will be confoundedly annoying,” he admitted quietly, “if we’ve had all this journey for nothing.”
Hobson moistened his dry lips with his tongue. The whisky and soda and the great bucket of ice stood temptingly at his elbow, but he appeared to ignore their existence. He was a man of ample build, with a big, clean-shaven face, a square jaw and deep-set eyes, a man devoted to and wholly engrossed by his work.
“See here, Crawshay,” he exclaimed, “if that dispatch was a fake, if we’ve been brought here on a fool’s errand, they haven’t done it for nothing. If they’ve brought it off against us, you mark my words, we’re left—we’re bamboozled—we’re a couple of lost loons! There’s nothing left for us but to sell candy to small boys or find a job on a farm.”
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