"He searched my rooms," Pamela replied, "and failed to find it. Afterwards, when he and I were alone in your sitting-room, heaven knows what would have happened, but for the miraculous arrival of Mr. Lutchester, whom I had left behind in London, come to pay an evening call in the Hotel Plaza, New York!" Van Teyl shook his head slowly, got up from his seat, lit a cigarette, and came back again. "Pam," he confessed, "my brain won't stand it. You're not going to tell me that Lutchester's in the game? Why, a simpler sort of fellow I never spoke to." "I can't make up my own mind about Mr. Lutchester," Pamela sighed. "He helped me in London on the night I sailed--in fact, he was very useful indeed--but why he invented that story about Nikasti, brought a dummy pocketbook into the room and helped us out of all our troubles, unless it was by sheer and brilliant instinct, I cannot imagine." "Let me get on to this," Van Teyl said. "Even the pocketbook was a fake, then?" She nodded. "I shouldn't be likely to leave things I risk my life for about my bedroom," she told him. "Where is it, then--the real thing?" he asked. She smiled. "If you must know, Jimmy," she confided, dropping her voice, "it's in a little compartment of a silk belt around my waist. It will remain there until I get to Washington, or until Mr. Haskall comes to me." "Haskall, the Government explosives man?" Pamela nodded. "Even he won't get it without Government authority." "Now, tell me, Pamela," Van Teyl went on--"you're a far-seeing girl--I suppose we should get it in the neck from Germany some day or other, if the Germans won? Why don't you hand the formula over to the British, and give them a chance to get ahead?" "That's a sensible question, Jimmy, and I'll try to answer it," Pamela promised. "Because when once the shells are made and used, the secret will be gone. I think it very likely that it would enable England to win the war; but, you see, I am an American, not English, and I'm all American. I have been in touch with things pretty closely for some time now, and I see trouble ahead for us before very long. I can't exactly tell you where it's coming from, but I feel it. I want America to have something up her sleeve, that's why." "You're a great girl, Pamela," her brother declared. "I'm off downtown, feeling a different man. And, Pamela, I haven't said much, but God bless you, and as long as I live I'm going as straight as a die. I've had my lesson." He bent over her a little clumsily and kissed her. Pamela walked to the door with him. "Be a dear," she called out, "and come back early. And, Jimmy!" ... "Hullo?'" "Put things right at the office at once," she whispered with emphasis. "Fischer hasn't found out yet. I sent him a message this morning, thanking him for the carnations, and asking him to walk with me in the park after breakfast, I shall keep him away till lunch time, at least."