“My dear fellow, that’s just a sheer impossibility. I know where I’m walking in this thing. I mean to win right along. This is no mere bluff I’m putting up: I hold a straight flush.”
I pressed the matter very insistently and in the end gained my point, although I should not have done so, had not Marvyn felt under a considerable obligation to me as the son of the man who had helped him, and whose influence could be depended upon to see him through any bother. He yielded with great reluctance. Still, he yielded, and that was all I needed.
“And what about Siegel?” he asked, when my point was settled and I had written the necessary letters and given into his charge the papers.
“You may safely wait until you hear from him or me. When the mistake is discovered they will be as anxious to get rid of him as he was that they should make it.”
“He’s a queer fellow.”
“He’s getting the ‘copy’ he wants.”
“There may be a row about it,” said Marvyn, who appeared to have a far scent for trouble.
“Only for newspaper purposes,” I answered as I left.
I was in high spirits at my first success. I had planted the compromising papers where even Kalkov’s iron hand would be powerless to reach them, and I had now only to complete the machinery by which they were to fall into the right hands if trouble came my way.
I drove to the Embassy of the Power chiefly concerned and asked for the man there whom Helga had mentioned to me. I sent up no name at first and consequently met with a courteous refusal and a request to put my business in writing.