10
SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION
"Oh, yes! I would not bo human else," wearily.
"I have dreamed, !ut the achievement has been
nil."
"Hardly that," I insisted, more interested than
ever iti thin personality being ho frankly revealed.
"A worthy dream is of itself an aehievement. What
form ilid yours take?"
"Literature," and her lips smiled. "Isn't it a
joke! With nil my ambitions the nearest lo it I
ever really attained was employment on a news
paper." "And now?"
She spread her hands with expressive gesture.
"I nppenl to a stranger for a meal yet, if history
tells truth, poverty is one of the evidenees of genius,
'more especially poetical. Possibly I am about to
arrive. "
She sH)ke so lightly that I failed to appreciate
the soberness of appeal underlying her words.
"1 am no judge in such matters," was all I could
think to reply. "Being an army man my life is too
intensely practicaj for dreams. I simply obey orders,
and just now that is also your duty."
"Indeed! with you in command?"
"Temporarily, at least. See, here is our waiter.'
"Oh, if it be oidy to eat, you will find me a most
obedient servant. Hut 1 insist upon sharing with
you I am quite generous."
"And I accept," adapting myself to her humor.
"You will not find me backward, for I only indulged
in a light lunch. It is distressing to eat alone."
"And I never find it distressing to eat either alone
or in company." She waited in silence until the
waiter departed.
"And you are really Philip Dessaud?" she questioned.
"There is no doubt as to that."
"I don't suppose you realize what that fact could
mean to me professionally, if I was base enough
to turn your friendship into money?"
"Professionally! What do you mean?"
She was eating with relish, yet paused to answer.
"Did I not confess I had been a newspaper woman?"
I nodded, wonderingly.
"And I am still, in a way. In fact this is my only
present means of livelihood, and you, Monsieur,
embody the one great mystery in town."
"Surely not," yet, even as I protested a faint sus
pirion came to me.
"What I say is true, however. Every city editor
in town has assigned his star men to interview you."
'Tor what cause?"
"To learn if possible some hint of the new dis
coveries embodied in your aeroplane, of course.".
Tib Ato P5Ea
Continued from Pag 4)
"But none have called upon ine," I said, unbe
lieving, "so this cannot be true."
She laughed, her eyes suddenly uplifted again to
my face.
"And you do not suspect why? Then let me
tell you, Monsieur. The Trench consul left strict
orders that you were not to be disturbed, lie fore
saw all this, and prepared for it. Tomorrow you
will find your box crammed full of reporters' cards,
and notes beseeching interviews. I discovered the
situation before you had ever registered."
"You! this is a new revelation."
"And my last," speaking rapidly, and leaning
across the table, so her words should not carry be
yond me. "Now, listen, do you understand why I
am going to tell you this?"
"No, although I do not in the least comprehend what
'this' may be."
"Well, it is serious enough, and my reason is that
I am a woman, and like you. That is cause enough.
But first let me ask you a question why do you
guard the secret of your invention so closely?"
"It is not my secret, Mademoiselle," I replied soberly.
"It belongs to France."
"Ah, I see; that explains what 1 wanted to know,
and gives me my excuse for speaking frankly. This
then is an intVrnational, and not simply a local news
paper affair." She leaned her face on her hands, a
little frown making creases between her eyes. "So
I am a mere eatspaw to pull their chestnuts out of
the fire. I began to suspect as much this afternoon.
The story will interest you, Monsieur; you may
despise the narrator, but I am disposed to risk that.
Shall I go on?"
While I said nothing, my eyes must have answered
for me, for, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, she
continued slowly:
"1 am a special writer on the Press, Monsieur, and
while it is true I was very hungry when I met you,
that hunger afose from deliberate starvation, and
not because I lacked means with which to procure
food. There was no Philip llouser; that all was a
lie told for the purpose of making your acquaintance.
Do you despise me for the deceit?"
"Not necessarily," I returned briefly. "To tell
the truth, also, I have half suspected this from the
first, although I know little of American newspaper
methods."
"Then I will tell you. They are bad enough, but
this goes even deeper. I have every reason to believe,
Monsieur, that there is a conspiracy against your
government of which 1 was to be made the unconsious
tool, under the guise of newspaper enterprise. Do
you know a German by the name of Brandt?"
"Not in this country no. Such a man was once
under arrest in Marseilles."
"And escaped, did he not? He belonged to the
secret service?"
"Yes; I was not there, but my captain saw and
described him to me a large man, with round face,
wearing spectacles; oh, yes, and a broken nose."
"Now wearing also a closely trimmed beard. He
was in our office yesterday, and after he left the
city editor assigned me to this case."
"Ah! and the editor?"
"Is German also; his name is Schmitt. But per
haps, I had better explain everything as it occurred."
"That will give me clearer understanding."
"And require but a moment. I was alone in the
reporters' room yesterday when this man came in.
He asked for Schmitt by name, and, there being no
boy present, and as he said he called by nppont
mcnt, I took in his card; it read simply Johann Brandt.
The city editor jumped up at once, ami came out and
shook hands with him, taking him into the private
office, and closing the door. Then he put out his
head again to say he was not to be interrupted. Their
greeting was in German, which I do not understand
well, but 1 am sure Schmitt called
tain. Gould that be?"
"Brandt was at one time in the
as an officer."
She drew a deep breath.
"He walks straight like a soldier, and Schmitt told
me once he served in the German-army. That must
be how they knew each other. Of course after the
door was closed I heard nothing; indeed felt no in
terest, but went 'on with my work. They were to
gether for half an hour, and when they came out
were still talking earnestly in German. Schmitt
went with him to the stairs, and stood watching his
visitor descend. When he came back, he looked all
around carefully, as though to make sure we were
alone, and then asked me into his room, and closed
the door. I stood beside the desk waiting, while
he fumbled over some papers, and my eyes chanced
to decipher among them a draft on a Berlin bank,
made out to Kmil Schmitt for a thousand dollars.
Before I could see more he had shoved it out of sight,
under some copy paper, and was giving me orders,
pretending to read from the assignment book."
She paused a moment, wetting her lips with a sip
of claret, while I waited silently.
(To Be Continued)
his visitor Cap-
army, I believe,
Tlfo Sftny IE Ansisiiri!j? Tlhg Pfle
Continued from Pag 6)
"Well it's against the regulations;
but they allow me some license. Be
ready at nine, and I will call for you.
Wear old clothes, a cap and a scarf
round your neck to hide your collar.
Is that understood?"
"Yes," I said, and so it was settled
between us.
We were punctual in our meeting,
and trotted eastward over the roads
we had covered on the previous day.
When we stopped it was at a narrow
rift in a wall of mean dwellings. We
dismissed the cab and threaded our
way down the alley, which opened out
upon a miserable square. The houses
that surrounded it had once been of
some pretension. In a simpler age
merchants had doubtless lived there,
men who owned the tall ships that
had lain in the river, near by. But.
now the porticos had crumbled, the
iron railings had bent and rusted, the
plaster had fallen in speckled patches
from the walls. In the center a few
ancient trees still dragged on a dis
consolate existence. It was a silent
place where wheeled traffic never
came. And when through an upper
window, a woman suddenly poured
fourth shrill abuse upon a drunken
man clinging to the railings, each
oath rang loudly in the furtive silence.
As we paused at the mouth of the
alley, a tall man, with a drooping
yellow moustache, brushed by us, and
when we turned into a beer-house at
the corner he followed us, standing a
little apart in an angle of the bar.
There were half a dozen men and
women of the life wreckage of the
great city sitting on the benches;
but before the inspector was served
with the drinks he ordered, they had
whispered one to another and melted
away. As the last one slunc through
the door, Peace beckoned to the tall
man, who joined us.
"Well, Jackson," he said, "you can't
hide your light under a bushel in
Stepney, that's certain."
"I'm afraid not, sir," he grinned.
"Leastways not in Maiden Square."
"Well, have you found the place?
Oh, that is all right," for the man
had glanced at me wit h a brief suspicion.
"Tl is is Mr. Phillips, who has been
of much service; to me in our little
affair; let me introduce vou to Sergeant
Jackson, Mr. Phillips."
I shook hands with the Serjeant, who
said that ho would take a glass of
beer.
"And the place?" asked Peace, when
we had seated ourselves on a corner
bench out of earshot of the man be
hind the bar a bottle-nosed ruffian,
who watched us furtively as he rinsed
the dirty glasses.
"That's the address, sir," said the
serjeant, handing his superior a crum
pled sheet of paper.
"A club, is it?" he said, glancing up
in his quick, bird-like way. "And
what sort of a club?"
"Foreign, sir. They call themselves
social democrats, but our special branch
men tell me that a full half of the
crowd are anarchists, and such rats
as that. I think it must be so, for
Nieolin and his Russians have had
the place under close observation for
weeks. And you know what that
means, sir."
"Yes, I know what that means."
"Amaroff was not a member, but
used to drop in there from time to
time. He was very thick with the
man who runs the place, Great mat),
as he calls himself. They tell me that
Great man sat as a model for some
statue he was doing, back in July.
It must have been a funny sort of
statue, for Great man's a weedy little
Pole, and drinks like a fish."
For some time the inspector sat in
silence, drawing circles on the floor
with the point of the light cane he
carried. The bartender dropped a
glass, swore, and then, with a stare
at us, retreated into a little cage he
had at the back of his domain. Doubt
less the presence of detectives was no
incentive to trade in the bars of Maiden
Square.
"This Great man what more do
you know of him?"
"We have had nothing against him
before; but all the same, it's his private
room that has the sanded floor."
The inspector's prophecy of the pre
vious night came back to me with a
sudden remembrance: "Amaroff was
murdered in a room with a sanded
floor, probably at no great distance
from Leman street, seeing that they
carried him there in a coster's bar
row." I began to understand the mor
bid significance of the private rooms
in this little foreign club.
To be concluded next it sue.
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