And at that moment, out on the open sea, the passengers of the Lusitania were strolling happily about the decks after a jovial luncheon. Someone looked at his watch to absently note that the time was 2.32. And as he raised his eyes---- The deadly, gray serpent-like form of a periscope as it raised itself above the waves. The wake of a torpedo as it hissed its way through the water. Then a great rolling roar, a shock that trembled through the whole vessel, a sickening lurch and plunge, the thunder of an explosion-- Hours later, in the dictograph room, Harrison Grant again leaned forward. "That telephone again!" he announced. "I wonder what it means? Boy-Ed always answers it. There he goes again. Guess he'll mumble into it, just as he's done all day--no, he's talking louder this time--it's something about a ship--" His hand clenched. "I can't get it," he grumbled. "If he'd only talk louder--what's that--the Lusitania?" "Lusitania?" The two other operatives looked up quickly. Harrison Grant nodded slightly. "Yes. Heard him say something about the Lusitania. Seems to be getting some kind of a report over the telephone, as though some spy were telling him something that had happened. Now he's left the telephone--he's gone back to the others--good God!" The two operatives leaped to their feet at the ejaculation from their chief. Their staring eyes saw that his cheeks were white, that the blood was slowly leaving his lips, leaving them purplish, ghastly. "They've ordered a toast to the Kaiser!" he announced coldly, "a toast--in commemoration of Germany's 'victory' over the Lusitania! It can mean only one thing--!" And as if in answer, up from the streets of New York there radiated the shouts of the newsboys, calling the headlines of the first "extra:" "Lusitania sunk! Lusitania sunk by German submarine! Klein, Vanderbilt, Hubbard and thousand others missing. Extry paper! Extry paper, all about the sinking of the Lusitania!" So that was the German victory! The Lusitania sunk! Wearily Grant sank into a chair, the dictograph receiver still to his ear. On the other side of the wall three men had raised their steins to the picture of the Kaiser, toasting him for the idea which had enabled the fishing smacks to wireless the news of the Lusitania's course to the waiting submarines, for the distorted brain which had devised the messages of fishermen into instruments of death, for the ungodly, demon-like cunning that had conceived the death of women and children to be a German "victory!" Droningly the words come over the dictograph: "To the Kaiser! May he continue his glorious victories, abroad--and here!" "Abroad--and here!" murmured Harrison Grant between his clenched teeth. "And 'here' means America!" CHAPTER II THE NAVAL BALL CONSPIRACY