"Queer for a girl."
"That's prejudice," she objected, shaking her head. "Nowadays there are few things a woman can't do. To tell you the truth, my new interest in life started three years ago, when Uncle Theodore found out that I was going to Rome for the winter."
"So Uncle Theodore started it, did he?"
She nodded.
"That's the worst of having an uncle in the Administration, isn't it? Well, of course, he gave me letters to every one in Rome, and I found out what he wanted quite easily, and without the inquiries going through the Embassy at all. Sometimes, as you can understand, that's a great advantage. I found it simply fascinating—the work, I mean—and after three or four more commissions—well, they recognised me at Washington. I have been to most of the capitals in Europe at different times, with small affairs to arrange at each, or information to get. Sometimes it's been just about commercial things. Since the war, though, of course, it's been more exciting than ever. If I were an Englishwoman instead of an American, I could tell them some things in London which they'd find pretty surprising. It's not my affair, though, and I keep what information I do pick up until it works in with something else for our own good. I knew quite well in Berlin, for instance, to speak of something you've heard of, that Henry's Restaurant in London was being used as a centre of espionage by the Germans. That is why I was on the lookout, the day I went there."
"You mean the day that pocketbook was stolen that the whole world seems crazy about?" Van Teyl asked.
She nodded.
"I believe it is perfectly true," she said, "that a young man called Graham has invented an entirely new explosive, the formula for which he brought to Henry's with him that day. It isn't only what happens when the shell explodes, but a sort of putrefaction sets in all round, and they say that everything within a mile dies. There were spies down even watching his experiments. There were spies following him up to London, there were spies in Henry's Restaurant when like a fool he gave the thing away. Fischer was the ringleader of this lot, and he meant having the formula from Graham that night. I don't want to bore you, Jimmy, but I got there first."
"Bore me!" the young man repeated. "Why, it's like a modern Arabian
Nights. I can't imagine you in the thick of this sort of thing,
Pamela."
"It's very easy to slip into the way of anything you like," she answered. "I knew exactly what they were going to do to Captain Graham, and I got there before them. When they searched him, the formula had gone. Fischer caught my steamer and worried me all the way over. He thought he had us in a corner last night, and then a miracle happened."