Suzanne leaned a little forward. Her cigarette burnt idly between her fingers.
'In this great conflict,' Niko continued, 'whose reverberations shake the earth, Japan watches from afar off. There are few who know the reason, but there is a reason. Let that pass. My country lays no seal upon my lips. What I know I pass on to you. A hundred million cartridges and five thousand tons of heavier ammunition, which might otherwise have reached Russia, are lying now at the bottom of the ocean. This is the doing of one man, a man in the pay of Germany, a man who is the greatest traitor the world has ever known.'
'Ossendorf!' Suzanne cried.
Niko bowed and moved towards the door.
'Mademoiselle has suspected, perhaps,' he concluded. 'It is I who can assure her that her suspicions are just. The greatest plant in America is kept producing munitions by day and night, bought with Russian gold but never meant to reach their destination. It is well?'
He looked at Lavendale, his hand upon the door. Lavendale nodded curtly.
'It is well,' he said.
*****
Mr. Jacob P. Weald smoothed out the document which he had been examining and drew a deep sigh of satisfaction.
'Say, Ed,' he remarked, turning to his secretary, who was smoking a cigar at the other end of the room, 'that's worth a cool million apiece for us, that contract.'