“How does she come to be visiting Pratt?”
“Put-up job! That’s one thing that makes me think there’s something big brewing. Pratt and his daughter were in Europe last summer just after—well, just after something peculiar happened—and the countess laid herself out for them. The Ouro Pretos aren’t any cheap adventurers, you understand. They’re all to the mustard in Paris and Berlin, and they made things mighty delightful for Susy Pratt. Now Susy’s all right. She’s a mighty sweet girl and the senator is—well—he’s chairman of the big foreign affairs committee of the Senate, but otherwise he’s what you’d expect a senator from his state to be. Fine people, both of them, but not the sort that the countess would lay herself out for without a lot better reason than their sterling characters. The colored gentleman in the wood-pile didn’t appear till this winter when the countess cabled from Tokio—Tokio, mind you—asking for an invitation to Washington for the winter. Of course, she got it, and I’d give something to know what she wanted it for. If it’s some big political scheme, as I think it is, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee is a mighty good stalking horse to do business behind. I believe she deliberately picked Pratt as a standing guarantee of her innocence and as an unsuspicious somebody whom she could wrap around her finger. Maybe she’s right about Pratt’s subserviency, but I’m none too sure of it.”
McNew considered. Then he slowly gathered up the typed pages that he had thrown on the table. “Then you really believe there’s something in this yarn of yours?” he asked.
Risdon did not answer at once. Instead, he stared out of the window along the broad stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue to where half a dozen electric lights branched beneath a pillared portico. So long he stared that McNew’s impatience burst out.
“Well! Well! Well!” he shouted. “Why don’t you speak?”
Risdon roused himself. “Yes,” he said, slowly. “I think it is correct—if not accurate. Of course, it isn’t new. It’s been used before. In fact, we’ve been yelling wolf a whole lot and nobody has ever taken it seriously, but the wolf did come at last in the fable, you’ll remember, and so may the Japs. I didn’t send that yarn just to make a story. I sent it because I really believed that the wolf might be about ready to come and I hoped to scare him off.”
McNew laughed. “Lord! you’re innocent,” he jeered. “Do you really think a scare-head in the Gazette would make the Japs—or Germans either—change their plans—if they have any. Your story would simply warn them. If you’re right—if you’re the least little bit right, you’ve got your finger on the story of the year. And you go off half cocked. Heavens! Risdon! If I didn’t know to the contrary I’d think you a rank cub.”
“Tha-a-anks! But suppose war comes—while I wait. Do you want that?”
“War!” McNew shuddered. “God forbid! The Spanish War wiped out the Gazette’s entire profits for 1898, and a war with Germany would ruin it.”
Risdon nodded. “So I understand,” he answered. “I wrote that article, if you’ll notice, so as to convey the idea that I got my information from the State Department and that it was prepared for anything. In other words I tried to make it appear that the United States had chosen me to serve formal notice on the Japs to go slow. But I didn’t get my information from the State Department. I got the basis of it in Berlin last summer, and I’ve got more later from various sources. There is really something big on. I was sure of it months ago. That’s why I persuaded you to send Miss Byrd to South America. It wasn’t for commercial reasons, as I let on—though she’s made good on those all right. It was because I was sure there was something doing. But—well, I’ve gotten frightened. You’ve read this story”—he pointed to the typed sheets—“and you know what it says. That rebellion in South Brazil is growing stronger day by day. The rebels are getting men and money and arms from unknown sources. Rutile—he’s secretary of our embassy in Berlin—thought they were sent from Germany and got a leave of absence and set off to investigate them. He’s disappeared and I can’t learn what’s become of him. It looks to me as if the game was getting near a finish. I don’t know what the State Department knows or thinks; and I’ve been afraid to ask questions for fear I’d give the scoop away. So it seemed best to print the yarn. If it does nothing else, it may at least stir up the State Department. A yarn like that is more effective when it’s published—even if it’s published in a yellow sheet like the Gazette. Somehow people put more credence in it. Besides, I think it’s not a bad story.”