CHAPTER VI THE MACHINATIONS OF MR. COURLANDER

Lavendale glanced at his thin gold watch and replaced it in his waistcoat pocket.

'Three minutes past eight,' he remarked. 'Half a dozen pairs of gloves for me, I think. Shall I go in and see about a table or would you rather dine somewhere else?'

Suzanne made a little grimace. They were in the foyer of the Ritz Hotel, and she was wearing a wonderful new gown.

'It is most disappointing,' she declared. 'I had made up my mind to conquest.'

'I am very impressionable,' Lavendale assured her.

She shook her head petulantly.

'It is not you whom I wish to subjugate.'

'I am too easy a victim, I suppose,' Lavendale sighed. 'I am afraid that to-night, however, you will have to be content with me.'

Her face suddenly changed, a brilliant smile parted her lips, she glanced at him triumphantly. Lavendale looked over his shoulder. Mr. Kessner was crossing the lounge towards them with outstretched hand.

'You've lost your gloves,' Suzanne murmured under her breath.

Mr. Kessner greeted his two guests in the most matter-of-fact fashion.

'I must apologize for being a few moments late,' he said. 'It is rather crowded here to-night, and I thought it best to go and see that no mistake had been made about my table. I should like, if I may, to introduce to you Mr. Courlander, a friend of mine from New York. Mr. Courlander is dining with us.'

The two young people murmured something suitable. Mr. Courlander turned out to be a dark, heavy-browed man, clean-shaven, and of a taciturn disposition. The little party made their way in to dinner. They were ushered to a small round table in the best quarter of the room, a table lavishly arranged with flowers and flanked with a couple of ice-pails, from which gold-foiled bottles were protruding. Suzanne gave a little sigh of content as she sank into her chair, and looked around her appreciatively.

'I have always observed,' she said softly, 'that the men of your country, Mr. Kessner, know so well how to entertain.'

'And also,' Mr. Kessner remarked, blinking slightly, 'how to select their guests.'

The service of dinner proceeded. Mr. Kessner, in his dress-suit, which seemed several sizes too large for him, appeared somehow to have become a more insignificant person than ever. In this ultra-fashionable restaurant, full of well-set-up men and soldiers in uniform, he seemed almost like some by-product, something not altogether human. His very insignificance compelled a certain amount of notice; conferred upon him, perhaps, an air of distinctiveness if not of distinction. He was Kessner, the multi-millionaire, probably over to secure contracts from the Government. The aroma of wealth hovered around his table. The term 'German-American' was unused—to few people there did it convey any significance. The little party talked of every subject under the sun except the war. Mr. Courlander, notwithstanding his heavy appearance, was an excellent raconteur. Dinner was more than half-way through before their host changed his attitude.

'You two young people did not, by any chance, expect me to break my appointment for this evening, did you?' he asked.

'We had a bet about it,' Suzanne admitted.

'Tell me who wagered in my favour and I will tell you which is the cleverer of the two?' he offered.

Suzanne laughed.

'It was I who thought that you would come,' she declared.

He bowed.

'After all,' he argued, 'why not? Listen,' he went on, leaning across the table. 'Courlander here does not count. He is in my confidence. He was, indeed, at one time my private secretary. To the world I am an American. To our young friend here,' he went on, indicating Lavendale, 'who appears to have partly discarded his diplomatic career for an excursion into the secret service of his country, I am a German-American. He follows me to Germany. He knows that I have a conference with the Kaiser. He is all agog with the importance of it. He comes back. He consults with you, my dear young lady, and with marvellous subtlety he asks me to lunch and exposes me most unfairly to the trial of your charms. I succumb—what more natural?'

He leaned back in his chair while a portly ma?tres d'h?tel superintended the filling of their glasses with champagne and explained to him the mysteries of the course which was being served. Neither Suzanne nor Lavendale found it easy to continue their meal unmoved. Their eyes were fixed upon this insignificant little man who spoke with such deliberation, such a queer little curl of the lips, such obvious enjoyment of his own thoughts.

'Your deep-laid scheme,' he went on, 'was crowned with complete success. The poor little American was robbed of his secret. By this time it is probably known in Washington. There is only one little fly in the ointment. A private intimation has already been given through our ambassador in Washington to the American Government, that unless America at once abandons her position of favouring the Allies at the expense of Germany and Austria, Germany will refuse now and for always henceforth to respect and accept the Monroe Doctrine.'

There was a moment's breathless silence. Then Lavendale drained his glass.

'You mean that that pronouncement has already been made?' he murmured.

'It has already been made,' Mr. Kessner assented. 'Further, you can understand quite easily, I am sure, that the exact locality in which this break should take place, although interesting, is not of vital importance. I do not wish to dispirit you. Yours was, without doubt, an excellent stroke of work, and I, the poor victim, am compelled to droop a diminished head. Yet I offer you this explanation so that you can see the reason why I am able to accept my defeat gracefully, to welcome you both here as my guests, to raise my glass to your beautiful eyes, mademoiselle, and to wish you, Mr. Lavendale, the further success in your profession which such subtlety and finesse demand.'

'Say, he's eloquent to-night, isn't he?' Mr. Courlander remarked. 'Quite an epic little meeting, this. I can assure you all that I consider it an immense privilege to have been asked to join your little party this evening.'

'My subtle friend,' Mr. Kessner continued, setting his glass down empty, 'is now wondering why you were asked to join it.'

'Not at all,' Lavendale replied. 'The fame of Mr. Courlander is well known to me.'

Their host for a single moment seemed disturbed. He recovered himself, however, almost immediately.

'Mr. Courlander,' he went on, 'as I have told you was once my secretary. Since then, for a brief space of time, he became a criminologist. Disgusted with the coarse tendencies of crime as practised in more modern cities he abandoned that profession to become what I might call a diplomatic detective. He is the terror of our loose-living public men and our ambitious but dishonest politicians.'

'Our friend's career in America,' Lavendale remarked dryly, 'must of necessity be a strenuous one!'

Mr. Kessner for a moment smiled. There was no effort of humour about the gesture. It was simply a slow, sideways parting of the lips, an index of thoughts travelling backwards along a road lined with grotesque memories. He drew a heavy gold pencil from his pocket and signed the bill. Then he rose to his feet.

'We will take our coffee outside,' he suggested. 'Afterwards, if it meets with your approval, I have a box at one of the music halls—I am not sure which.'

They lingered only a few minutes over their coffee. While they sat there, however, Mr. Kessner's secretary, a middle-aged man with gold spectacles and abstracted manner, brought in a note. Mr. Kessner opened it, read it carefully and tore it into small pieces. He rose, a few minutes later, joined his secretary, who was waiting on the outskirts of the little group, and walked with him twice down the entrance hall. Then he returned.

'The car is waiting,' he announced, 'if you are ready. Won't you, my Machiavellian young friend,' he added, glancing at the scraps of paper which he had left upon the coffee table, 'try and put those fragments together? I promise that you would find them interesting—more intrigue, and a very interesting one, I can assure you.'

Lavendale found it hard to forgive himself later for the impulse which prompted his answer. The temptation, however, was irresistible.

'I have no need to put them together to know the source of your message,' he replied.

'No?' Mr. Kessner remarked politely, as he lingered for a moment over adjusting Suzanne's coat. 'There are a good many millions of people in London, are there not? Shall I give you a hundred thousand to one against naming the writer?'

'In dollars, if you like,' Lavendale replied carelessly. 'I won't take your money, but I'll start, then, with Baron Niko Komashi.'

Mr. Kessner, who had half turned away, watching the result of his attentions to Suzanne, became suddenly motionless. His lips were a little parted, he seemed almost paralysed. When he turned slowly around there was a new look in his eyes. Courlander, on the other hand, did not attempt to restrain an exclamation of wonder.

'Baron Niko Komashi,' Kessner repeated. 'Who is he?'

Lavendale laughed easily. He was already bitterly regretting his momentary lapse.

'Heaven knows!' he exclaimed. 'The odds dazzled me.'

They walked out to the car almost in silence. A new spirit seemed to have come to Kessner. He looked and talked differently throughout the rest of the evening's entertainment. He seemed somehow to have lost his air of half bantering confidence. When the time came for farewells, he looked long and earnestly into Lavendale's face.

'We must know one another better, young man,' was all he said....

On their way back to her rooms, Suzanne gripped Lavendale by the arm and asked him a question.

'What does it all mean?' she demanded. 'Why did you guess Niko? Why were they both so thunderstruck?'

'Because,' he replied, 'Niko happened to be the writer of that little epistle.'

Her large eyes gleamed at him through the semi-darkness, filled with wonder.

'But how could you possibly know that?'

He smiled.

'It is your responsibility,' he explained. 'I noticed the perfume directly he drew the note from the envelope.'

She laughed softly—softly at first and then heartily.

'Why, it is most amusing!' she exclaimed. 'He thinks you a necromancer. He is, I believe, a little afraid of you. And that other man, all through the performance he scarcely took his eyes off you.'

'At any rate,' Lavendale observed, 'it has given me something to think about.'



II

Lavendale found his way to the American Embassy early on the following morning, and interviewed his friend Mr. Washburn.

'Anything from Washington?' he inquired.

'I have only had a formal acknowledgment,' Mr. Washburn replied, 'except that they added a code word they don't often make use of, and which I take to indicate a pat on the back for you.'

'Is it true,' Lavendale continued, dragging a chair up to the side of Mr. Washburn's desk, 'that Berlin has given Washington to understand that unless she changes her attitude toward the Allies and withdraws her objection to submarine warfare, she will no longer respect the Monroe Doctrine?'

'Pourparlers to that effect,' Mr. Washburn confessed, 'have passed. How did you come to hear of them?'

Lavendale smiled a little grimly, yet with some self-satisfaction.

'I am getting on the track of something else which promises to be even more interesting,' he went on. 'Tell me, how do we stand with Japan just now?'

Mr. Washburn knitted his brows.

'Still friction—always friction,' he admitted. 'The whole thing is too ridiculous. Personally, I consider our Western States are very much to blame. We have never before raised the cry 'America for the Americans only,' and it's too late to do it now. And the fact of it is you see, the Western States simply decline to fall in with Washington Policy. Then the trouble comes. Any particular reason for asking?'

'I don't know yet,' Lavendale replied. 'There's a Japanese fellow named Komashi in my line of business, seems to be very busy just lately. I only caught on to it last night, though. Chief well?'

'We are all overworked,' Washburn replied. 'We have had to send Barclay over to Berlin to get a personal report about the prisoners' camps there. Then we get enough questions from Germany ourselves, about their prisoners here, to swamp the place.'

Lavendale took up his hat.

'I'll see you later,' he promised.

He walked down the steps from Spring Gardens into St. James's Park and sat for a time upon a seat. Exactly in front of him, the upper floors of one of the big houses in Carlton Terrace had been turned into a hospital, and he could see the soldiers lying about in long chairs, a few of them entertaining guests. Behind him was the long row of huts built by the Admiralty. A troop of soldiers swung along the broad road, a loudly playing band heralded the approach of a little company of recruits. Save for these things, London seemed as usual. From where he sat, the hum and the roar of the great city came as insistently as ever to his ears. His thoughts had travelled back to New York. How long, he wondered? ...

It was one of the chances of a lifetime which brought Lavendale face to face that afternoon with Baron Niko Komashi in a quiet street near St. James's Square. Niko would have passed on without even a sign of recognition but Lavendale stopped him.

'Good afternoon!' he said.

'Good afternoon!' the other replied gravely.

'I should like a few minutes' conversation with you,' Lavendale proceeded.

Niko was perplexed but acquiescent.

'If it pleases,' he answered a little vaguely.

Lavendale marched him along the street.

'There is a little bridge club to which I belong, close at hand,' he said. 'Come into the sitting-room there for a few moments. We shall be quite alone at this hour of the afternoon.'

Niko suffered himself to be passively led in the direction which his companion indicated. In a few moments they were seated in the comfortable parlour of a well-known bridge club. They were quite alone and Lavendale closed the door.

'Well,' he asked, 'how goes it with your new ally?'

Niko's face betrayed nothing but mild wonder. Lavendale smiled.

'Listen,' he said, 'I may be making a mistake about you. I do not think that I am. I think that you represent for your country what I do for mine. You are intensely patriotic. So am I. You realize the need for a certain amount of diplomatic insight into the workings of her constitution and her future. So do I. The only trouble is that you are for Japan and I am for America.'

Niko assented very gravely. His soft brown eyes were watching Lavendale's lips as though they would read upon them even the unuttered words. His finger-tips, soft and pliant as velvet, were pressed together.

'You are not to be bought, my friend,' Lavendale went on. 'Neither am I. When we walk together, you hedge yourself around with restraint because you believe that I am one of those who could bear your country ill-will. That is where you are wrong. That is where there is a cloud between us which ought to be driven away. Japan and America naturally, industrially and geographically, should be friends, not enemies.'

'The causes of ill-feeling which lie between us,' Niko observed suavely, 'are not of our making.'

'Nor of ours—not of the true American,' Lavendale answered promptly. 'It is the desire of Washington, official Washington, that the sons of your country who come to us should be treated as our own sons. What we have to contend with, and you, is local feeling. The only sentiment that exists against Japan in my country is that local feeling, and the people who have shown themselves most virulently possessed of it are the compatriots of the man who only within the last few weeks has sought to pave the way for a disgraceful compact with your country.'

Niko's face was a little whiter, his eyes were filled with wonder. Slowly he nodded his head.

'You surprise me with your knowledge of things which I had imagined secret,' he said. 'Secret they have remained so far as I am concerned. Such information as you have gained can have come but from one source, so I will speak thus far. The sword of Japan shall be drawn in defence of her honour, and for no other cause. The alliance which you suggest would be hateful and dishonouring to my country. Nor,' he concluded, 'would Japan at any time commence a war with a treasonable ally.'

'What answer have you made to Kessner?' Lavendale asked bluntly.

His companion gently raised his eyebrows.

'Who is that gentleman—Mr. Kessner?' he inquired.

Lavendale shrugged his shoulders.

'Ah! I forgot,' he said. 'Those would not be your methods. Yet we know quite well that the person whose name I have mentioned has made overtures to you which could not, under present circumstances, emanate from Berlin. Japan from the west, and Germany on the east, might well embarrass a country so criminally unprepared for war as mine. I take it, however, that that combination is not to be feared.'

Niko rose from his place. He had a habit of ending a discussion exactly at the period he chose.

'Not in your time or mine,' he answered simply....

Lavendale, notwithstanding a nervous system almost unexampled, was possessed of curiously sensitive instincts. Before he reached Pall Mall, he was obsessed with an idea that he was being followed. He turned rather abruptly around. A tall, broad-shouldered man in dark clothes, wearing a Homburg hat and with a cigar in the corner of his mouth, waved his stick in friendly greeting.

'This is Mr. Lavendale, isn't it?' he remarked. 'Kind of forgotten me, perhaps? My name's Courlander. Met you with Mr. Kessner the other night.'

'I remember you perfectly,' Lavendale acknowledged. 'Very pleasant dinner we had.'

Mr. Courlander fell into step with his companion, who had turned eastwards.

'There are few things in the world that Ludwig Kessner doesn't understand,' he continued, 'from the placing of a loan to the ordering of a dinner. He isn't much use at eating it, poor fellow, but that's the fault of his digestion. Too much ice-water, I tell him.'

Lavendale nodded affably. He had no objection whatever to discussing Mr. Kessner.

'Kind of misunderstood over here, the boss,' Courlander went on. 'People think because he's of German extraction that his sympathies are altogether that way. As a matter of fact, I can tell you, Mr. Lavendale, that people are dead wrong. At the present moment—I wouldn't have every one know this, but you're an American, too—Mr. Kessner is making proposals for a very large purchase of British War Loan.'

'Is he indeed!' Lavendale observed, in a tone as colourless as he could make it.

Courlander glanced at him curiously. They were passing the Carlton and he drew his arm through Lavendale's.

'Just one cocktail,' he suggested.

Lavendale hesitated for a moment, inspired by an instinctive dislike of his companion. Policy, however, intervened. He accepted the invitation and followed Courlander into the smoke-room. They found two easy-chairs and the latter gave the order.

'I was talking about the boss,' he went on. 'There are others besides you who have misunderstood him some, but they'll learn the truth before the war's over.'

'When is Mr. Kessner returning to America?' Lavendale asked.

'As soon as he can find a safe steamer,' Courlander replied. 'He is a trifle nervous about the Atlantic. Say, that tastes good!'

Mr. Courlander leaned back and sipped his cocktail. Lavendale, with a word of excuse, rose to his feet and strolled across the room to speak to an acquaintance. He returned in less than a minute. Mr. Courlander was leaning back in his chair, American from tip to toe. He wore a dark grey suit of some smooth material. His square-toed boots, the little flag in his buttonhole, his prim tie, his air of genial confidence, were all eloquently and convincingly typical of his nationality. Lavendale was followed by a waiter bearing two more glasses upon a tray.

'Try my sort,' he invited.

Mr. Courlander glanced at Lavendale's glass, which was still three-quarters full.

'You haven't finished your first one yet,' he remarked.

'A little too dry for me,' Lavendale replied, placing it upon the tray and taking the full glass. 'Here's luck!'

The two men looked at one another. In Courlander's hard brown eyes, a little narrowed by his drooping eyebrows, there was an air of fierce though latent questioning. Then with an abrupt gesture he took the glass from the tray and drank off its contents.

'You'll forgive me if I hurry away,' Lavendale went on. 'We shall meet again, I dare say, before Mr. Kessner leaves.'

'Sure!' Mr. Courlander murmured, as he picked up his hat. 'I am generally to be found round about the Milan. Like to have you come and dine with me one night.'

The two men parted at the hotel entrance. Lavendale got into a taxi and drove to his rooms. As he changed his clothes, he glanced through his correspondence. There was a note from Suzanne which he read over twice:—

'Dear Friend,—

'I want to see you at once. I shall be in from seven till eight. Please call.'

Lavendale glanced at the clock, hurried with his toilet, and found himself ringing the bell at the entrance door of Suzanne's suite at half-past seven. She admitted him herself and ushered him into the little sitting-room, which had been transformed almost into a bower of deep red roses.

'Mr. Kessner,' she exclaimed, pointing around, 'with a carte de visite! You see what he says?—'"From a forgiving enemy!"'

Lavendale glanced at them with a frown upon his forehead.

'I'd like to throw them out of the window,' he declared frankly.

'Do not be foolish,' she laughed. 'Listen. You are dining somewhere?'

'At our own shop,' he replied. 'They ask me about once in every two months, to fill up.'

'I wanted to speak to you about that man Courlander,' she went on.

'Well?'

'Lawrence Dowell—the American newspapers woman, you know—was in here yesterday and stayed to lunch. We saw Mr. Courlander in the distance and she told me about him. Do you know that he was convicted of murder?—that it was only through Mr. Kessner's influence that he was taken out of Sing-Sing? He was a police-sergeant and his name was Drayton. They say that there were several cases against him of having men put out of the way who had made themselves obnoxious to Tammany Hall. The sentence against him was quite clear, yet Mr. Kessner not only managed to have him released but made him his private secretary.'

Lavendale stood for a moment looking out of the window with his hands in his pockets. Then he turned slowly around.

'About an hour ago,' he said, 'this fellow Courlander tried to doctor a cocktail I was drinking in the Carlton smoking-room.'

'What?' she exclaimed.

'I met him at the corner of St. James's Street,' he went on. 'I had been in the club with Niko Komashi, and I am perfectly certain that he had been dogging me. We walked along Pall Mall and he pressed me to go in and have a cocktail. I happened to cross the room to speak to Willoughby and on the way glanced into the mirror. I saw Courlander's hand suddenly flash over my glass. It was so quick that even though I saw it myself, I could scarcely believe it, and I'm certain that no one else in the room could have noticed it. When I got back, I made some excuse and ordered another cocktail.'

She seemed suddenly to lose some part of that serenity which as yet he had never seen even ruffled. She was distinctly paler.

'You must be careful—please promise that you will be careful,' she begged.

'This isn't New York,' he reminded her.

'But that man is a perfect devil,' she persisted earnestly. 'He is a professional murderer. He has no feeling, no mercy, and he is so cunning. And behind him there is Kessner and all his millions.'

Lavendale shrugged his shoulders.

'All the millions that were ever owned,' he said, 'wouldn't help a man over here against the law. I am not afraid of Courlander. There is nothing he could try which I am not prepared for, and if it comes to a hand-to-hand struggle, I don't think I have anything to fear from him.'

'I don't like it,' she told him frankly. 'You will be on your guard, won't you?'

His voice softened.

'Of course I will, but, Miss de Freyne—Suzanne—why don't you like it? Why do you worry about me at all?'

She was silent for a moment. She had turned a little towards the window, her eyes had lost their usual directness. He took a step forward.

'It isn't because you care a little about me, by any chance, is it?' he asked.

She gave him her hand. Then she turned around and he saw that her eyes were soft with tears.

'Suzanne!' he faltered.

She turned towards him. There was something very sweet about her little gesture, something yielding and yet restraining.

'Won't you please forget all this for just a little time?' she pleaded. 'To tell you the truth, I feel almost like a traitress when I even let myself think of such things now that my country is in such agony, when everything that is dear to me in life seems imperilled. You have your work, too, and I have mine. Perhaps the end may be happy.'

He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

'I will obey,' he promised, turning towards the door.

'And you will be careful—please be careful,' she begged, as she let him out and squeezed his arm for a moment. 'There! Now you must go to your dinner. You look very nice, and I am sure you will sit next some one altogether charming, and perhaps you will forget. But I shall like to think of this evening.' ...


Practical, hard-headed, and with a sound hold upon the every-day episodes of life, Lavendale nevertheless passed through the remainder of that evening with his head in the clouds. He was vaguely conscious of the other twenty-three guests who shared with him the hospitality of the Ambassador—a few diplomats, a professor from Harvard University and his wife, two other distinguished Americans, with a sprinkling of their English connections. He sat next a distant relative of his own, an American girl who had married an Englishman, and his abstraction was perhaps ministered to by the fact that conversation from him was entirely unlooked for. In the reception rooms afterwards he found himself able to speak for a moment with Washburn.

'Have you seen anything of Mr. Kessner?' he asked.

The other made a little grimace.

'Very little,' he replied. 'The Chief and he don't exactly hit it off. I heard a rumour the other day that he might be going back to Germany.'

Lavendale played a couple of rubbers of bridge and was invited to take a cigar in the library before he left. It was shortly after one o'clock before he stepped into the taxicab which a servant had summoned for him.

'17 Sackville Street,' Lavendale directed.

He threw himself back in the corner of the vehicle, and they glided off. A drizzling rain was falling and the streets were almost empty. He leaned forward in his place to light a cigarette. That fact and his habits of observation probably saved his life. He realized suddenly that this was no ordinary taxicab in which he was travelling. It conformed to none of the usual types. The cushions were more luxurious, the appointments unusual. He sat for a moment thinking. The chauffeur was driving at a fair pace, but he had taken a somewhat circuitous route. Lavendale tried the doors, first on one side, then on the other. They were both fast, secured with some sort of spring lock. Suddenly alert, he rose softly to his feet, crouched for a moment upon the back seat and thrust his head and shoulders through the window. It was easy enough to wriggle out, to descend and allow the vehicle to proceed to its destination, wherever that might be, without its passenger, but the love of adventure was upon him. He set his teeth, sank back once more in his corner, half closed his eyes. To all appearance he might have been a tired diner-out prematurely asleep. As a matter of fact, every nerve and sense was keenly on the alert, and his right fingers were locked around the butt of a small revolver. Without protest or comment, he saw himself conducted by a roundabout way into a maze of quiet streets. Then, with a little thrill of anticipation, he saw a man who had been loitering near an entry turn and follow the vehicle, which at his coming had slackened speed. The man was wearing some sort of rubber-soled shoes and his footsteps upon the street were noiseless. Through his half-closed eyes, Lavendale was nevertheless conscious of his approach, realized his soft spring on to the footboard of the car, was more than prepared for the sudden flick in his face of a sodden towel, reeking with chloroform. His right fist shot out, the figure on the footboard went reeling back into the street. Even then, prepared though he had been, Lavendale for a moment gasped for breath. The car, with a sudden grinding of the brakes, came to a standstill. They were at the top of a darkly-lit street and not a soul was in sight. Lavendale thrust his foot through the glass in front of him, shattering it all around the driver. The man half sprang to his feet, but Lavendale's swift speech arrested him.

'Sit where you are,' he ordered. 'Never mind about that other fellow. Drive me to the Milan Hotel. You know the way, so do I. If you go a yard out of it, feel this!'

He suddenly dug the muzzle of his revolver into the man's neck. The man, with an oath, crouched forward.

'Do as I tell you,' Lavendale thundered, 'or I'll shoot you where you sit! Remember you're not in New York. Do as I tell you.'

Once more the car glided off. They turned almost immediately into Piccadilly, across Leicester Square, passed up the Strand and drew up at the Milan. Lavendale put his head through the window as the porter came out from the Court entrance.

'I can't open this door,' he said. 'Ask the fellow in front how to do it.'

The porter stared with surprise at the shattered glass. The driver slipped down, touched a spring on the outside and the door flew open. He had pulled his cap deeper over his face. Lavendale looked at him for a moment steadfastly.

'Wait for me,' he ordered.

He walked into the Court, rang for the lift and ascended to the fourth floor. He stepped out and rang the bell at number seventy-four. For a moment there was no answer. He rang it again. Then a light suddenly flashed up in the room and Mr. Kessner, fully dressed, stood upon the threshold. He gazed, speechless, at Lavendale, who pushed forward across the threshold, holding the door open with one hand.

'Mr. Kessner,' he said, 'your thug with the chloroform is lying on his back somewhere near Sackville Street. I shouldn't wonder if his spine wasn't broken. Your sham chauffeur is downstairs with his sham taxicab. I made him bring me here. You understand?'

The tip of Mr. Kessner's tongue had moistened his lips. His lined yellow face seemed more than ever like the face of some noxious animal.

'You are drunk, young man,' he said.

Lavendale raised his arm and Mr. Kessner stepped back.

'Don't be afraid,' Lavendale went on scornfully. 'I am not going to shoot you. When the day of reckoning comes between you and me, if ever it does, I shall take you by the throat and wring the life out of your body. But I am here now to tell you this. Before I sleep, a full account of this night's adventure, instigated by you and your assassin Courlander, will be written down and deposited in a safe place. If anything happens to me, if I disappear even for a dozen hours, that paper will be opened. You may get me, even now, you and Courlander between you, only you'll have to pay the price. See? In England it's a damned ugly price!'

Mr. Kessner sucked the breath in between his teeth. Then, as though with some super-human effort, he recovered himself.

'Say, young fellow, won't you come in and talk this out?' he invited.

Lavendale laughed dryly.

'"Won't you walk into my parlour?"' he quoted mockingly. 'No, thank you, Mr. Kessner! You know where we stand now. Let me give you a word of warning. London isn't New York. A very little of this sort of thing and you'll find the hand of a law that can't be bought or bribed or evaded in any way, tapping upon your shoulders. You understand?'

Mr. Kessner yawned.

'You are a foolish young man,' he said, 'and you've been reading a little too much modern fiction.'

He slammed the door and Lavendale descended to the street. The courtyard was empty.

'The car didn't wait for me, I suppose?' he inquired of the porter.

'The fellow drove off directly you went upstairs, sir. I shouted after him but he took no notice. Shall I get you a taxi, sir?'

Lavendale fumbled in his pocket, found a cigarette and lit it.

'Thank you,' he replied, 'I think I'll walk.'