Jimmy buzzed at Grant excitedly, like an irritating mosquito.
"Open it up—please, Mr. Grant. It's full of German papers. A guy left it on the 'L' train and I picked it up."
Harrison Grant, with thoughts of Jimmy and the Adventures of Old King Brady, looked down at the youngster and laughed.
"Jimmy, it's a good thing I know you're a good boy or——" he had opened the portfolio now and was drawing out its contents. He stopped with a quick exclamation as his eyes rested on a letter.
"The spy correspondence of Dr. Heinrich Albert!"
As Harrison Grant was hastily running through the contents of the brown portfolio with which Jimmy had so unceremoniously presented him, the guests lounging about the parlors of the Ritz Carlton were somewhat startled at the sudden entrance of a tall dark man. Caution almost forgotten in the need for instant conference with his fellow plotters, Albert had hailed the first taxi driver in sight and ordered him to drive to the hotel at which Von Bernstorff the ambassador, was stopping, as quickly as possible. Paying the driver as they arrived, he had rushed into the lobby, had himself announced and impatiently fumed while the elevator with a slow elegance unappreciated by the doctor, carried him to the floor of Von Bernstorff's suite. A moment later he was somewhat incoherently pouring his recital of events into the interested ears of Von Bernstorff, Von Papen and Boy-Ed.
"I fell asleep. I've been doing much night work," this in a somewhat apologetic tone which won no sympathy from his hearers, "and awoke only when they called my station. I hurried out, forgetting my portfolio. How I did it I do not know. It never leaves my side. That I should have forgotten it now——" Albert threw himself into a chair and ran his fingers through his hair excitedly. "The boy waved at me from the window of the train," he went on. "I immediately telephoned to the next station to have him stopped and the bag taken away from him. But they say when he got there he slid past the guard, ran down the steps, tripped up a newsdealer, got away from a policeman and then ran with it."
Jimmy would have been surprised to know what importance was attached to his actions of the past hour.
Von Bernstorff frowned. "He's probably taken it to the Secret Service," he cut in. "The result will be that sooner or later every scheme outlined in that correspondence will be frustrated. It was careless, Albert, exceedingly careless work. But we must concern ourselves with the necessities of the moment."
A moment's pause ensued. "The consequences of this affair would be staggering if the papers should fall into the right hands."