'He neither reported before he left, nor has he been in since he got back. Kind of giving us the cold shoulder, isn't it?'
'He hasn't had much time yet,' Lavendale remarked thoughtfully, 'but it certainly doesn't look exactly like the behaviour of a loyal American.'
Mr. Washburn turned in his place, removed his spectacles from his eyes and rubbed them carefully with his handkerchief. A slight weariness was apparent in his face and tone.
'That's our great trouble, Ambrose,' he said. 'Germany's a mighty country. She holds her sons in a closer grip than any other nation in the world. A German-American is a German first and an American afterwards, and don't you forget it. That's what makes us such a polyglot, indiscriminate race. Are you going to make a report?'
'Not at present,' Lavendale replied. 'I haven't yet pieced together the scraps I was able to pick up. Let it be for a day or two. What I am anxious to find out is whether Kessner reports here or not, and what account he gives, if any, of his journey to Germany.'
'I'll send you word directly he shows up, if he comes at all,' Mr. Washburn promised. 'I hear there are half-a-dozen more of his gang in London.'
'They've some sort of a show on. Kessner as good as admitted it to me.'
'Where do you stand with him?' Mr. Washburn asked curiously.
'I'm all right up to the present,' Lavendale asserted. 'He believes I went over on a mission about the British prisoners, 'and he's inclined to fancy I may be useful to him. Anyway, he is lunching with me to-day.'
'If you think you'll get much out of him, young fellow,' he said, 'I fancy you're looking for disappointment. The brains that made twenty million in Wall Street and control an organization so secret that we can't even put a finger upon it----'
'Yes, I know,' Lavendale interrupted, rising, 'but, you know, there's always chance to be reckoned with, and I've one card up my sleeve, anyway. I know all about him and he doesn't suspect me yet.' ...
'Exactly why am I asked to this festive lunch?' Suzanne de Freyne inquired, as she leaned back upon a settee in the small lounge which led into the Milan grill-room, at a few minutes before one o'clock that morning.
'Because I am up against a cul-de-sac,' Lavendale confessed, 'and I want your woman's wit to show me the way out.'