"Both of her! Then there are two women involved?"
"No, only one; but which one of two suspects she is I can't for the life of me decide. I know who she is, and yet I don't know. I'll come to that part of it in a minute or two. I haven't told you the name of the head devil of the whole intrigue yet, have I? You've met him, I imagine. At any rate you surely have heard of him.
"You know him, or else you surely know of him, as the Hon. Sidney Bertram Goldsborough, of London, England, and Shanghai, China."
"Goodness gracious me!" In her astonishment Miss Smith had recourse to an essentially feminine exclamation. "Why, that does bring it close to home! Why, he is among the persons invited to my cousin's house to-morrow night. I remember seeing his name on the invitation list. That's why you asked me about her party a while ago. My cousin met him somewhere and liked him. I've never seen him, but I've heard about him. A big mining engineer, isn't he?"
"A big international crook, posing as a mining engineer and ostensibly in this country to finance some important Korean concessions—that's what he is. His real name is Geltmann. Here's his pedigree in a nutshell: Born in Russia of mixed German and Swiss parentage. Educated in England, where he acquired his accent and the monocle habit. Perfected himself in scoundrelism in the competent finishing schools of the Far East. Speaks half a dozen languages, including Chinese and Japanese. Carries gilt-edged credentials made in the Orient. That, briefly, is your Hon. Mr. Sidney Bertram Goldsborough, when you undress him. He was officially suspected of being something other than what he claimed to be, even before Westerfeltner divulged his name. In fact, he fell under suspicion shortly after he turned up in Paris in January of this year, he having obtained a passport for France on the strength of his credentials and on the representation that he wanted to go abroad to interest European financiers in that high-sounding Korean development scheme of his—which, by the way, is purely imaginary. He hung about Paris for three months. How he found out about the document which the army officer was bringing home, and how he found out that the officer—in order to save time—would travel on a French liner instead of on a transport, are details that are yet to be cleared up by our people on the other side. There has been no time yet of course to take up the chase over there in Paris. But obviously there must have been a leak somewhere. Either some one abroad was in collusion with him or perhaps indiscreetness rather than guilty connivance was responsible for his learning what he did learn. As to that, I can't say.
"But the point remains that Geltmann sailed on the same ship that brought the army officer. Evidently he hoped to get possession of the paper the officer carried on the way over. Failing there, he tried other means. He followed the officer down to Washington, seduced Westerfeltner by the promise of a fat bribe, and then, just when his scheme was about to succeed, became frightened and returned to New York, trusting to a woman confederate to deliver the paper to him here. And now he's here, awaiting her arrival, and from all the evidence available he expects to get it from her to-morrow night at your cousin's party."
"Then the woman is to be there too?" Miss Smith's eyes were stretched wide.
"She certainly is."
"And who is she—or, rather, who do you think she is?"
"Miss Smith, prepare for a shock. Either that woman is Mme. Josephine Ybanca, the wife of the famous South American diplomat, or else she is Miss Evelyn Ballister, sister of United States Senator Hector Ballister. And I am pretty sure that you must know both of them."