“Strange,” muttered Koshloff in the other’s ear. “Peculiar. It is the answer. We have no choice. It must be in order.” Without more ado the packet was opened and Koshloff presented the slip in silence to his companion. That man, of massive, intellectual forehead and deep set, penetrating eyes, scanned it carefully and pondered long, Koshloff watching him with half closed but eager eyes. “Tell your Imperial Master,” said the other, turning sharply upon Lanagan and speaking with clean incisiveness, “that you met the Secretary of State in person, and that the Secretary, speaking for his excellency the President, says, that the answer of the President is--yes.” The Secretary of State, ten days disappeared from Washington, out here on the western fringe of the continent, pledging the attitude of the United States in the threatened Russo-Japanese conflict and not a line in any paper in the world to indicate the whereabouts of the Secretary, his business, or the definite attitude of the United States in the impending conflict! It was the story of a newspaper man’s lifetime. “Carry the verbal message, or transmit it to your relief,” instructed Koshloff. “Conditions may not make packets safe by the time you reach the Orient. You may go. You have funds? Your pin is safe?” “I have,” said Lanagan, who, with two days to go to pay day, had about sixty-five cents. He indicated the pin with a gesture and turned on his heel for the panel, to be stopped by a sudden muffled uproar from the billiard-room, a sound of excited, shrill cries, of scuffling. Neither the Secretary nor Koshloff moved a muscle; neither did Lanagan. He was thoroughly in possession of himself. Two panels swiftly and noiselessly slid open at the farther wall of the room, and two smooth-shaven, trim, keen-eyed men stepped into the room alertly and took their places beside the Secretary’s chair. “Mr. Secretary travels with the entire secret service bureau,” Lanagan found time to comment to himself. There came a tattoo on the panel from the billiard-room. The Secretary held up his hand for silence and motioned one of the secret service agents, who stepped noiselessly to the panel and listened. The tapping came again. “Answer,” commanded the Secretary. “It is over, whatever it was.” The panel slid open. Through the aperture came one of the billiard players, flashing a quick, steely glance upon Lanagan. “Balked, by the eternal!” shot through Lanagan’s mind. “The owner of that pin has shown up. It’s now or never.” He stepped casually to the panel; it was a fine chance. Once through there, he could make a fight for the front door,--and the seven column exclusive in the _Enquirer_. Directly before him, fairly filling the space of the panel, was the other billiard player. It was quick action. Lanagan shot out his right for the man’s jaw; but his arm got about half way. A grip like an iron clamp had him just above the elbow. He was whirled face about, a secret service man on either side.