'If your sympathy were a little stronger,' she remarked quietly, 'I could show you how to render England an incalculable service.'
'Tell me how?'
'First of all,' she continued, 'look at those three men and tell me what you think of them?'
He turned a little in his place and glanced towards the table which she had indicated. One of the three men who were seated at it was obviously a foreigner. His hair was grey towards the temples, although his moustache was almost jet-black; his cheek-bones were high, his teeth a little prominent. He wore evening clothes of the most correct cut, his shirt and links were unexceptionable. His two companions were men of a different stamp. The one who seemed to dominate the party was a huge man, clean-shaven, with puffy face and small eyes. He wore a dark flannel suit of transatlantic cut. He was drinking a large whisky and soda and smoking a cigar, and had apparently eaten nothing. His companion was of smaller build, with flaxen moustache and hair, and dressed in light grey clothes and yellow boots. On the face of it, the trio were ill-assorted.
'Well, I should say,' Lavendale remarked, 'that the dark man in the corner chair was a foreigner—a Russian, for choice. The other two are, of course, American business men. The face of the big man seems familiar to me.'
'You've probably seen his picture in the illustrated papers,' she told him. 'That is Jacob P. Weald. He was once called, I believe, the powder king.'
Lavendale nodded. His manner had become more interested.
'Of course,' he murmured. 'And that's Jenkins, the secretary to the Weald Company. I wonder who the third man is?'
'His name is Ossendorf—the Baron Cyril Ossendorf. He is a persona grata at the Russian Embassy and he owns great estates in Poland.'
'Stop!' Lavendale exclaimed. 'This is getting interesting. He is buying munitions, of course.'