There was no waiter near. Von Lertz whipped out a clean handkerchief from his pocket. Unnoticed by him a small leather-colored booklet slipped from his pocket with the handkerchief and dropped to the floor. Dixie's quick eyes saw it and while she thanked Von Lertz with a gratitude that, under different circumstances, he would have thought somewhat profuse for the service rendered, Dixie slipped her foot over the little book. The slamming door had admitted two new-comers, a man and a girl. The girl Dixie recognized at once as a member of the Secret Service and catching her eye, she signalled to her to come over. Von Lertz, ever on the alert for new conquests, lost no time in asking the girl to dance with him. Dixie had known this would happen. As the girl and Von Lertz circled away from the table, she excused herself to the girl's escort, leaned over, picked up the little note-book and left the room. A moment later in the dressing-room she started wide-eyed and with quickening breath at a report in which were jotted down items, all planning death and destruction and horror of a vastness beyond comprehension. CHAPTER VII THE BROWN PORTFOLIO No one passing with the crowds that thronged Fifth Avenue at all hours would have singled out the great stone house that stood flush with the sidewalk near Fifty-second Street. Its great doors with their outer gates of iron bars were flanked on each side by anemic box trees which bravely struggled for a living amid the dust and grime of the city. Its closely curtained windows presented an impression of cold aloofness. To the passerby there was nothing to indicate that its air of ancient respectability was but assumed. It's door swung into an entrance hall whose gloomy grandeur was lightened by the subdued light of wall brackets with colored shades. Broad stairs led to the upper floors. At one side of the hall beautifully panelled oak doors opened into a long room, whose wall, hung with tapestry and great paintings, and giant fireplace gave to the interior an air of baronial splendor. Amid this quiet luxury and display of royal grandeur the German government had established its headquarters for the system of espionage it had introduced into a peaceful country. This room was the meeting place of the chief agents of the German government. To it came Von Lertz of the susceptible heart, most recently lost to Dixie Mason; here came Boy-Ed and Von Papen, Von Rintelen of many disguises and Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, for conferences with Dr. Albert, paymaster for the Kaiser's spy army in America. And that their movements might be directed with greatest secrecy and expediency wireless messages were received here direct from Nauen, Germany, through the huge antennae which could be stretched upward from the chimney of the house and through the great detectors concealed behind the massive oil paintings adorning the walls.