"'Paul Koenig has assured us that a man will swear that the vessel carried guns. Also that an affidavit will be given that she was loaded with contraband. Dumba can be counted on to espouse our cause—.'"
"What does it mean?" Cavanaugh stepped forward. Grant frowned. "Can't tell, Von Papen's doing the talking. Now Boy-Ed has joined him:
"'Surely we should have heard before this. Do you suppose anything could have gone wrong? Surely they were prepared. But today's May seventh, and it should have happened May fifth. If—.'"
"All right. What's the rest?" Stewart looked up from his copying. Grant shook his head.
"They're mumbling—I can't hear. They seem to have all gotten over in a corner with their heads together and are trying to talk so that no one around the club will hear them. But—wait a minute—they're talking louder now—no, they've settled down to that buzzing again—I think I hear a telephone ringing—Von Papen has just told Boy-Ed to answer it. Wait now—wait—"
A strange silence in the dictograph room. Harrison Grant adjusted the receiver closer to his ears. He pressed a hand strainingly against it, as though to aid him in the hearing of what was going on over in the next room. But impossible.
And at that moment, out on the open sea, the passengers of the Lusitania were strolling happily about the decks after a jovial luncheon. Someone looked at his watch to absently note that the time was 2.32. And as he raised his eyes——
The deadly, gray serpent-like form of a periscope as it raised itself above the waves. The wake of a torpedo as it hissed its way through the water. Then a great rolling roar, a shock that trembled through the whole vessel, a sickening lurch and plunge, the thunder of an explosion—
Hours later, in the dictograph room, Harrison Grant again leaned forward.
"That telephone again!" he announced. "I wonder what it means? Boy-Ed always answers it. There he goes again. Guess he'll mumble into it, just as he's done all day—no, he's talking louder this time—it's something about a ship—"