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"Look here," Van Teyl said, swinging round in his chair, "I like the business and I know you can finance it, but are you sure that you realise what you are doing? Every one believes Anglo-French have touched their bottom. They've only to go back to where they were say five points and you'd lose half a million." Fischer smiled a little wearily.
For a single moment she fancied that she saw a flash of annoyance in his eyes. It was gone so swiftly, however, that she remained uncertain. He held out his hand, laughing. "Fairly caught out, Miss Van Teyl," he confessed. "You see, I was tempted, and I fell." His companion, an elderly, clean-shaven man, passed on. Pamela glanced after him. "Who is your opponent?" she asked.
"I believe he's expected back to-morrow.... Say, can I ask you a question?" Lutchester almost imperceptibly drew his chair a little closer. "Of course you can," he assented. "What I want to know," Van Teyl continued confidentially, "is how you get that long run on your cleek shots? I saw you play the sixteenth hole, and it looked to me as though the ball were never going to stop."
"You have a marvellous gift for discovering lost property," she murmured. "For discovering the owners, you mean," he retorted, with a little bow. "You're some golfer, I see, Mr. Lutchester," Van Teyl interposed. "I was on my game to-day," Lutchester admitted. "With a little luck at the seventh," he continued earnestly, "I might have tied the amateur record.
Anyway, she came bang up against me in a little scheme I had on the night before I left Europe, and somewhere about her she's got concealed a document which I'd gladly buy for a quarter of a million dollars." Van Teyl drank off his second cocktail. "Some money!" he observed. "How did she come by the prize?" "Played up for it, just as I did," Fischer replied.
Guess they can't drop much lower." Lutchester sat down. "Thank you," he said, "I will wait." A little ripple of excitement went through the office as Van Teyl started his negotiations. It seemed to Lutchester that several telephones and half a dozen perspiring young men were called into his service. In the end Van Teyl made out a note and handed it to him.
Everything was to have gone his way, after all. And now it was too late. Fischer knew, and Fischer was a cruel man!... The unnatural silence came to an end. Only Fischer's voice seemed to come from a long way off. "Drink your wine, James Van Teyl," he advised, "and listen to me. You've been under obligations to me from the start. I meant you to be.
I've been waiting about for a telephone message. She hadn't arrived, a few minutes ago." Fischer frowned. "I want us three to meet you and she and I the first moment she sets foot in the hotel," he declared. "What's the hurry?" Van Teyl demanded. "You must have seen plenty of her the last ten days." "That," Fischer insisted, "was a different matter. See here, Jimmy, I'll be frank with you."
Thank God we're away from that inquisitive crowd for a few minutes! Are you going to give me an idea of what's moving?" Fischer watched the wine being poured into his glass. "Not until this evening," he said. "I want you to bring your sister and come and dine at the new roof-garden." "I don't know whether Pamela has any engagement," Van Teyl began, a little dubiously.
The mention of his name, however, seemed to chill all the hospitality out of the smiling face of the southern butler who answered his ring. Miss Van Teyl was out, and from the man's manner it was obvious that Miss Van Teyl would continue to be out for a very long time.
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