With thoughts free from the 'longshoremen and their difficulties settled, his mind reverted to the subject nearest his heart, and one which even in moments of greatest danger and suspense or wildest excitement, he was ever conscious of. Dixie Mason's dark eyes seemed to look wistfully at him from the darkness.
Dixie's little jaunt to the Ten Mile House with Von Lertz had almost proved highly worth the necessity of enduring his attentions for several hours. They had danced and dined and danced again, and Von Lertz had ordered many drinks. As he imbibed drink after drink he became with each one a little less careful, a shade more loquacious. But he dropped no word of proceedings that she recognized as of any importance. Dixie grew a little discouraged and tired as the time passed. She was about to suggest the necessity of returning to the city when a door slammed noisily. In a state of nervous tension, Dixie started, upsetting the small glass of cordial that had been served to her. The bright colored liquid ran in a quick stream toward the edge of the table, toward her. Dixie drew back.
"Wipe it up quick! I don't want it to get on me!"
There was no waiter near. Von Lertz whipped out a clean handkerchief from his pocket. Unnoticed by him a small leather-colored booklet slipped from his pocket with the handkerchief and dropped to the floor. Dixie's quick eyes saw it and while she thanked Von Lertz with a gratitude that, under different circumstances, he would have thought somewhat profuse for the service rendered, Dixie slipped her foot over the little book.
The slamming door had admitted two new-comers, a man and a girl. The girl Dixie recognized at once as a member of the Secret Service and catching her eye, she signalled to her to come over.
Von Lertz, ever on the alert for new conquests, lost no time in asking the girl to dance with him. Dixie had known this would happen. As the girl and Von Lertz circled away from the table, she excused herself to the girl's escort, leaned over, picked up the little note-book and left the room. A moment later in the dressing-room she started wide-eyed and with quickening breath at a report in which were jotted down items, all planning death and destruction and horror of a vastness beyond comprehension.
THE BROWN PORTFOLIO
No one passing with the crowds that thronged Fifth Avenue at all hours would have singled out the great stone house that stood flush with the sidewalk near Fifty-second Street. Its great doors with their outer gates of iron bars were flanked on each side by anemic box trees which bravely struggled for a living amid the dust and grime of the city. Its closely curtained windows presented an impression of cold aloofness. To the passerby there was nothing to indicate that its air of ancient respectability was but assumed. It's door swung into an entrance hall whose gloomy grandeur was lightened by the subdued light of wall brackets with colored shades. Broad stairs led to the upper floors. At one side of the hall beautifully panelled oak doors opened into a long room, whose wall, hung with tapestry and great paintings, and giant fireplace gave to the interior an air of baronial splendor.