Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
His hands and knee were gone from the table. He was once more his old self, so completely the servant that for a moment even Pamela was puzzled. It seemed as though the events of the last few seconds might have been part of a disordered dream. Nikasti played to the cue of her fevered question and entirely ignored them. He opened the door with a respectful flourish and John Lutchester walked in.
He was very small, and his dark eyes seemed filled with melancholy. "It is not for a very long time," he ventured. "Long enough to do me out of my five dollars' tip every week," the man grumbled. "I'm a married man, too, and a good American. Blast you fellows, coming and taking our jobs away! Can't think what they let you into the country for." "I am sorry," Nikasti murmured.
He was just back from a tiring day in Wall Street, and was reclining in the most comfortable easy-chair of his Hotel Plaza sitting-room. "Gee!" he murmured. "This beats me. The last thing I should have thought we wanted here was a valet. The fellow who looks after this suite has scarcely anything else to do. What did you say your name was?" "Nikasti, sir."
Forward young baggages some of them are." Nikasti glided from the room, closed the door, and approached the telephone receiver. "Yes," he acknowledged, "these are the rooms of Mr. Van Teyl... No, madam, Mr. Van Teyl is not in at present." There was a moment's pause. Nikasti's face was impenetrable as he listened, but his eyes glowed. "Yes, I understand, madam," he said softly.
"I attended the Baron Yung's reception last week, informally. I threw out very broad hints, but Yung would not be drawn. Nikasti represents the Secret Service of Japan, unofficially and without responsibility." "Nevertheless," Fischer pointed out, "what he says will reach the ear of his country, and reach it quickly. You've gone through the papers I sent you?" "Carefully," Von Schwerin replied.
"You haven't been down in the lobby of the hotel, you haven't been knocked down by a taxicab that skidded, you haven't lost a pocketbook which you had previously stolen from my sister?" Nikasti shook his head. He seemed completely mystified. He watched Pamela's face carefully. "Perhaps there has been some mistake," he suggested quietly. "My English is sometimes not very good.
Nikasti travelled all through England, studied our social life, measured our weaknesses; did the same through Germany, returned to Japan, and gave his vote in favour of Germany. I have even seen a copy of his report. He laid great stress upon the absolute devotion to sport of our young men, and the entire absence of any patriotic sentiment or any means of national defence.
Afterwards we will go upstairs and take your sister into our confidence." Van Teyl nodded. "Very well," he agreed hoarsely. "We'll hear what Pamela has to say." Nikasti, with a low bow, watched the disappearance of the lift into which his two new masters, James Van Teyl and Oscar Fischer, had stepped. He waited until the indicator registered its safe arrival on the ground floor.
"I had something to do with that," he announced. "It was Karl Neumann, was it not, on whom you relied? I supplied him with much information." Von Schwerin's face clouded for a moment. "You mean that you fooled him, I suppose," he said. "Well, it is all part of the game. That is over now. We want your exports to Russia stopped." "Ah!" Nikasti murmured reflectively. "Stopped!"
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.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking