“As I make it out,” said Tom, “Heidenmuller was the man who discovered the secret power which has been destroying the battleships, but he can’t be ‘the man,’ because he died before the first ship went down. Therefore he must have passed it on to some one else who is using it, possibly the American who was his friend, or one of the Germans. It strikes me that the next thing to do is to find an American in London who wears a Theta Sigma Rho pin.”
Instantly I startled the peaceful calm of the embankment, and made myself an object of suspicion to the neighboring bobby, by leaping in the air and clapping my hands together.
“Hamerly, by all that’s holy!” I cried. “You remember that fellow I took home that night you arrived, Dorothy?”
She nodded, her eyes gleaming with interest.
“He’s one of our men, and he had an acid stain on his coat. I’ll wager you he’s the American. I know where he lives and I’ve been up to see him once, but he was out. I’ll go up there right after dinner.”
“Do you think he’s ‘the man’?” asked Tom in excitement.
“I don’t see how he could be,” I said slowly. “‘The man’ was working in the Channel, when he was in the British Museum. But he’s surely the next man to interview.”
By eight I was in a hansom speeding towards Half-Moon Street. “Was Mr. Hamerly in?” He was, and met me half way down the stairs. “This is very good of you, Orrington,” he said. “I was very sorry to miss your last call.”
For some time we talked of various things, of college days, and of affairs at home. He had come over as a Rhodes scholar and, having a little money left him while at Oxford, had gone on in London after graduation, leading a life of quiet study. As we talked, I sized my companion up. “A trifle grave but, after all, a sane, sterling fellow,” I decided, and I put my errand directly to him.