"You don't know much about your sister, young fellow," he said. "Internal politics over here may not interest her a cent, but she's crazy about America as a country, and she's shrewd enough to see things coming that a great many of you over here aren't looking for. Anyway, she came bang up against me in a little scheme I had on the night before I left Europe, and somewhere about her she's got concealed a document which I'd gladly buy for a quarter of a million dollars." Van Teyl drank off his second cocktail. "Some money!" he observed. "How did she come by the prize?" "Played up for it, just as I did," Fischer replied. "She was clever enough to make use of my scaffolding, and got up the ladder first. I'm not squealing, but I've got to have that document, whatever it costs me." Van Teyl was silent for a moment. There was an undercurrent of something threatening in his companion's manner, of which he had taken note. "And the second thing you mentioned?" he asked. "What is that?" Fischer, as though to give due emphasis to his statement, indulged in a brief pause. Then he leaned a little forward and spoke very slowly and very forcibly. "I want to marry her," he declared. Van Teyl learned back in his chair and gazed at his vis-a-vis in blank astonishment. "You must be a damned fool, Fischer!" he exclaimed. "You think so?" was the unruffled reply. "I wonder why?" "I'll tell you why, if you want to know," Van Teyl continued bluntly. "I know of four of the richest and best-looking young men in America, two ambassadors, an English peer, and an Italian prince, who have proposed to Pamela during the last twelve months alone. She refused every one of them." "Well," Fischer remarked, "she must marry some time." Van Teyl looked at him insolently. "I shouldn't think you'd have a dog's chance," he pronounced. There was a little glitter behind Fischer's spectacles. "Up till now," he admitted smoothly, "I have not been fortunate. I must confess, however, that I was hoping for your good offices." "Pamela wouldn't take the slightest notice of anything I might say," Van Teyl declared. "Besides, I should hate you to marry her." "A little blunt, are you not, my young friend?" Fischer remarked amiably. "Still, to continue, there is also the matter of that document. I must confess that I exercised all my ingenuity to obtain possession of it on the steamer." "You would!" Van Teyl muttered. "Your sister, however," Fischer continued, "was wise enough to have it locked up in the purser's safe the moment she set foot upon the steamer. She gave me the slip when she got it back, and eluded me, somehow, on the quay. She will scarcely have had time to part with it yet, though. When she arrives here to-night, it will in all probability be in her possession." "Well?" Van Teyl demanded. "You don't suggest that I should rob her of it, I suppose?"