'It made off when they saw us struggling.'
'He told the truth, then!' she exclaimed. 'Jules shot himself as soon as he realized that the game was up—there in the room before me, a few minutes ago. He told me with his last breath that the formula was on its way down the river to Germany.'
Lavendale smiled grimly.
'It's on its way down the river, right enough,' he assented, 'but I don't think it will reach Germany.'
CHAPTER III
A DEAL WITH NIKO
Lavendale paused in the act of struggling with his tie, and looked steadfastly into the mirror in front of him. He had heard no definite sound, yet some queer intuition seemed to have suddenly awakened within his subconscious mind a sense of the mysterious, something close at hand, unaccountable, minatory. His flat was empty and the catch of the front door secure, yet he knew very well that he was being watched. He turned slowly around.
'What the mischief——'
He broke off in his sentence. A small man, dressed in black clothes, imperturbable, yellow-skinned, and with Oriental type of features, was standing to attention, a clothes-brush in his hand. His dark, oval eyes rested for a moment upon the crumpled failure of Lavendale's tie. Without a word he took another from an open drawer, came softly across the room and reached upwards. Before Lavendale knew what was happening, the bow which had been worrying him for the last five minutes was faultlessly tied. He glanced into the mirror and was compelled to give vent to a little exclamation of satisfaction.
'That's all very well, you know,' he said, turning once more around. 'The tie's all right, but who the devil are you, and what are you doing in my rooms?'