"I don't suppose he knows I have such a thing," she replied. "He has a master-key himself to all the safes, which he used. This is one the housekeeper gave me as soon as I arrived."
Lutchester looked out into the darkness.
"Tell me," he inquired, "is that your house—the next one to this?"
"That's the old Hastings' house," she assented. "They are all family mansions along here."
"It looks an easy place to burgle," he remarked.
She laughed quietly.
"I should think it would be," she admitted. "There are any quantity of downstair windows. We don't have burglaries in Washington, though —certainly not this side of the city."
A little bevy of young people had found their way into the gardens. Lutchester waited until they had passed out of earshot before he spoke again.
"I have reason to believe," he continued, "that in the course of their negotiations Fischer has deposited with your uncle a certain autograph letter, of which we have already spoken, making definite proposals to America if she will change her attitude on the neutrality question."
"The written words," Pamela murmured.