“You took it then from my assailants, but how did it go to the sailors?” Impey asked. “They claim to have found it at the theatre, and they brought it on board my yacht at Yokohama, and they are there at this moment--my prisoners. In the interest of peace and for your good I have held them until I could come to you and privately explain the situation.” For the fraction of a second there was silence. To Phil, Impey’s voice sounded insincere, yet everything pointed to its being the truth. Suddenly Sydney jumped to his feet, his eyes bright with amazement. “Then why did Taki take the stand he did? He did not know our connection with this document?” he asked. Impey’s face was wreathed in smiles. “That is quite simple to explain. Captain Inaba believes that you, Mr. Perry, had the letter, for the sailors said they showed it to your Japanese steward and he was in Captain Inaba’s office this morning. I saw him come away from there myself.” The two midshipmen exchanged rapid glances. Had they been mistaken in their estimate of Impey? Was he after all playing square? Yet the conversation on the train was still unexplained. “Were you on the special train that brought us to Tokyo yesterday?” Phil suddenly asked, while Impey, apparently unconscious of the intended trap being laid for him by the midshipman, nodded, his face still smiling. “Then how can you explain as a friend of the Americans, and holding the confidence of the American ambassador, your action in assuring a Japanese companion that America was negotiating for the Chinese squadron when you know that it is untrue?” Phil’s voice held a ring of triumph. He watched Impey’s face intently, certain of surprising a guilty start, but he was doomed to disappointment. Instead the foreigner continued to placidly smile. “I am afraid as detectives you are but a qualified success,” Impey said in a patronizing voice. “You have unfortunately followed a blind trail. Everything I have done has been with Mr. Tillotson’s fullest approval. In order to surprise their secret from them I intentionally made the Japanese officials believe that the United States was negotiating for the ships of the new Chinese navy. That I was successful was shown by the contents of the lost letter.” The two lads stood nonplussed before the wily foreigner. Phil doubted that the ambassador would give his sanction to such a method. Impey’s conduct was inexplicable to the midshipman. Instead of an enemy, as they had come to believe him, was he in reality a friend who had warned their government, through Mr. Tillotson, of an act which would harm the “balance of power” in the Far East? Try as he would Phil felt it was difficult to regard Impey in this new rôle of friend. Down in the bottom of his heart, he yet mistrusted him.