“Yesterday,” continued Von Holzen, “I met an old acquaintance--a Miss Wade--one of the young ladies of a Pensionnat at Dresden, in which I taught at one time. She is a daughter of the banker Wade, and told me, reluctantly, that she is at The Hague with her father--a friend of Cornish's. This morning I took a walk on the sands at Scheveningen; there was a large fat man, among others, bathing at the Northern bathing-station. It was Major White. It is a regular gathering of the clans. I saw a German paper-maker--a big man in the trade--on the Kursaal terrace this morning. It may be a mere chance, and it may not.”
As he spoke he had withdrawn from his pocket a folded paper, which he was fingering thoughtfully. Dorothy, who knew that she had by her looks unwittingly warned him, made no motion to go now. He would say nothing that he did not deliberately intend for her ears as much as for her brother's. Von Holzen opened the paper slowly, and looked at it as if every line of it was familiar. It was a sheet of ordinary foolscap covered with minute figures and writing.
“It is the Vorschrift, the--how do you say?--prescription for the malgamite, and there are several in The Hague at this moment who want it, and some who would not be too scrupulous in their methods of procuring it. It is for this that they are gathering--here in The Hague.”
Roden turned in his leisurely way, and looked over his shoulder towards the paper. Von Holzen glanced at Dorothy. He had no desire to keep her in suspense, but he wished to know how much she knew. She looked into the fire, treating his conversation as directed towards her brother only.
“I tried for ten years in vain to get this,” continued Von Holzen, “and at last a dying man dictated it to me. For years it lived in the brain of one man only--and he a maker of it himself. He might have died at any moment with that secret in his head. And I,”--he folded the paper slowly and shrugged his shoulders--“I watched him. And the last intelligible word he spoke on earth was the last word of this prescription. The man can have been no fool; for he was a man of little education. I never respected him so much as I do now when I have learnt it myself.” He rose and walked to the fire. “You permit me, Fräulein,” he said, putting the logs together with his foot.