"I locked it," he told her. "It is locked now, securely. I have been searching in your room for something which I did not find. I think that you had better give it to me. It will save trouble." "Are you mad?" she demanded breathlessly. "Do I seem so?" he replied. "There is no person more sane than I. I require from you the formula of the new explosive, which you stole in Henry's restaurant eleven days ago." The sense of mystery passed. It was simply trouble of the ordinary sort from an unexpected source. "Dear me!" she murmured. "Every one seems interested in my little adventure. How did you hear about it?" "I destroyed the cable telling me of all that happened only a few minutes ago," he explained. "It was the foolish talk of the young inventor which gave his secret to the world to scramble for." "It was very clever of your informant," she remarked, "to suggest that I was the fortunate thief. Why not Oscar Fischer? It was his plot, not mine." The eyes of the little Japanese seemed suddenly to narrow. He realised quite well that she was talking simply to gain time. "Madam," he insisted, "the formula. It is for my country, and for my country I would risk much." "I do not doubt it," she replied; "but if I hold it, I hold it for my country, too, and there is nothing you would risk for Japan from which I should shrink for America." He laid his hands upon the table. She turned her ring and clenched her hand. She could see his spring coming, realised in those few seconds that here was an opponent of more desperate and subtle calibre than Joseph. Whether her wits might have failed her, fate remained her friend. There was a knock at the door. "You hear?" she cried breathlessly. "There is some one there. Shall I call out?" His hands and knee were gone from the table. He was once more his old self, so completely the servant that for a moment even Pamela was puzzled. It seemed as though the events of the last few seconds might have been part of a disordered dream. Nikasti played to the cue of her fevered question and entirely ignored them. He opened the door with a respectful flourish--and John Lutchester walked in. CHAPTER XII Pamela's first shock of surprise did not readily pass. In the first place, John Lutchester's appearance in America at all was entirely unexpected. In the second, by what possible means could he have arrived at this precise and psychological moment? "You!" she exclaimed, a little helplessly. "Mr. Lutchester!" He smiled as he shook hands. Nikasti had slipped noiselessly from the room. Pamela made no effort to detain him. She had a curious feeling that the things which had passed between them concerned their two selves only. So had no desire whatever to hand him over to retributive justice.