Thus the news of the sinking of the Lusitania came to New York, to throw a saddening cloud upon what was planned to have been the happiest week of many years. For in the Hudson River, great, sleek leviathans of the deep, the sixty-four vessels of the Atlantic fleet had dropped anchor to await the President's review, while the streets, the theatres, the restaurants, bore the glorious flutter of flags and bunting, and the blue and white of the navy uniforms were everywhere. And now that the Lusitania had been sunk, now that the lives of more than a hundred of America's best citizens had been sacrificed to the lust of Imperial Germany, those big vessels seemed to take on a new meaning, a new significance. In New York harbor primarily only for a review and for a jollification, they now assumed their real proportions in the eyes of the populace, displaying to Eastern America just for what they could be depended upon in case of war. And with every day, that danger seemed closer. For America resented the sinking of the Lusitania. The great crowds around the bulletin boards, watching daily the steadily lengthening list of the dead, called for vengeance, for repayment from this monster nation across the Atlantic that could kill women and children and glory in it as a "victory." Every telegram from Washington, every news dispatch, emphasized the gravity of the situation. And no one knew better that gravity than did Harrison Grant of the Criminology Club. Working day and night with his companions of the Club, Grant had hurried to the uncovering of the conspiracy to present forged affidavits asserting that the Lusitania carried guns and contraband. Clue after clue was run down, while in Washington, the Imperial German Embassy worked just as hard in the opposite direction, covering the tracks of its plotters and its spies, seeking to proclaim to America the sorrow which it assumed over the sinking of the great British liner. To some the sorrow seemed sincere. To others--Harrison Grant among them--that sorrow was known to be only a mask, thrown hastily on to deceive America and to keep America at peace until Germany felt itself able to cope with it and strangle it as it sought to strangle the rest of the world. And so the days went, in moves and counter moves. Day after day the populace, by the hundreds of thousands, gathered on the banks of the Hudson to look at the tremendous battleships and to glory in their power and effectiveness. And while they did so-- Four men were meeting again in the embassy at Washington--the same four who generally gathered there, Franz von Papen, Karl Boy-Ed, Dr. Heinrich Albert and their leader, Ambassador Bernstorff. Point after point they discussed regarding the sinking of the Lusitania and the possibility of war. At last-- It was Dr. Albert who was speaking, pawing through the reports that he had dragged from his beloved portfolio: