"There are two things about your sister," Fischer continued. "The first is that she's got to quit this secret service business she's got herself mixed up in."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Van Teyl exclaimed. "Pamela doesn't care a fig about politics."
Fischer grunted scornfully.
"You don't know much about your sister, young fellow," he said. "Internal politics over here may not interest her a cent, but she's crazy about America as a country, and she's shrewd enough to see things coming that a great many of you over here aren't looking for. Anyway, she came bang up against me in a little scheme I had on the night before I left Europe, and somewhere about her she's got concealed a document which I'd gladly buy for a quarter of a million dollars."
Van Teyl drank off his second cocktail.
"Some money!" he observed. "How did she come by the prize?"
"Played up for it, just as I did," Fischer replied. "She was clever enough to make use of my scaffolding, and got up the ladder first. I'm not squealing, but I've got to have that document, whatever it costs me."
Van Teyl was silent for a moment. There was an undercurrent of something threatening in his companion's manner, of which he had taken note.
"And the second thing you mentioned?" he asked. "What is that?"
Fischer, as though to give due emphasis to his statement, indulged in a brief pause. Then he leaned a little forward and spoke very slowly and very forcibly.