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Updated: June 9, 2025
He turned slowly towards the little figure of black ivory, his head drooped lower he was filled with a great shame. 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.
"He seemed to have an absurd idea," Pamela explained sweetly, "that I might have somewhere concealed upon my person the formula which was stolen from Captain Graham last Monday week at Henry's Restaurant. It makes quite a small world of it, doesn't it?" "I will deal with Nikasti for this," Fischer promised, "if it is true. Meanwhile?"
The consequences were speedy, and in their way satisfactory. Nikasti himself, a breathless chambermaid, a hurt but dignified waiter, and the floor valet, who had not even stopped to put on his coat, entered together. They seemed a little stupefied at finding Pamela alone and no sign of any disturbance. "Why was I locked in here?" Pamela demanded indignantly, taking them en bloc.
When he had finished, he replaced it in the envelope and pushed it back into the other's breast pocket. "Now," he directed, "you can get up." Nikasti scrambled to his feet. There were livid marks under his eyes. For a moment he had lost all his vitality, he was like a beaten creature. "You would never have done this," he muttered, "ten years ago, I grow old."
Nikasti stood suddenly to attention. "It is Mr. Van Teyl who returns," he warned them. He glided from the room, shaking out a little the dress coat which he had been carrying. The two men looked after him. Fischer threw his cigar savagely away and lit another. "Curse these orientals!" he muttered. "They listen and listen, and one never knows. Van Teyl won't be here for hours.
"I don't think I do," she admitted. "Nikasti was sent to England some years ago to report upon us as a country. Japan at that time was meditating an alliance with one of the great European Powers. Obviously it must be Germany or England.
"Weren't you knocked down by a taxicab," Pamela asked, "outside the hotel?" Nikasti looked from one to the other with an air of gentle surprise. "I have been to my rooms in the servants' quarters," he told them, "on the upper floor. I have not been downstairs at all. I have been unpacking and arranging my own humble belongings." Van Teyl clasped his forehead. "Let me get this!" he exclaimed.
Then the latter entered the sitting-room, and Nikasti obeyed his summons. "Anyone called me up?" he inquired. "No one, sir." Van Teyl glanced at the clock in an undecided manner. "I'll change right away," he decided. "Just set things to rights in here, fill my cigarette case, and hang round by the telephone." Nikasti bowed, and the young man disappeared into the inner room.
In the days of peace, all seemed favourable to us. Since the war, even those people whom I thought my friends seem to have lost their heads, to have lost their reasoning powers." "After all," Fischer muttered, "it is race calling to race. But come, we have more direct business on hand. Nikasti is here." Von Schwerin nodded a little gloomily. "Washington knows nothing of his coming," he observed.
"To begin with then," Lutchester said, "the pocketbook which Nikasti is supposed to have stolen from your room, the pocketbook of young Sandy Graham, which Mr. Fischer has sent to Germany, does not contain the formula of the new explosive, or any other formula that amounts to anything." "Just how do you know that?" she demanded.
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