Early in the day, Dawson and Buchan and Mrs. Stetson were in conference with her in her office and a bit later the servants, some thirty or forty of them, were assembled in their dining-room and assigned various duties, all of which were performed under the supervising eye of Mrs. Wellington, her daughter, or Sara Van Valkenberg. No decorative specialist, or other alien appendage to social functions on a large scale, was in attendance, and, save for the caterer's men, who arranged a hundred odd small tables on the verandas, and the electricians, who hung chandeliers at intervals above them, the arrangements were carried out by the household force.
Under the direction of Anne Wellington—whose mind seemed fully occupied with the manifold details of the duties which her mother had assigned to her—Armitage and a small group hung tapestries against the side of the house where the tables were, and then assisted the gardener and his staff in placing gladiolas about the globes of the chandeliers. Small incandescent globes of divers colors were hidden among the flowers in the gardens and an elaborate scheme of interior floral decoration was carried out. Before the afternoon was well along, all preparations had been completed and the women had gone to their rooms, where later they were served by their maids with light suppers. Armitage went to town in the car to meet the Prince, whom he had taken from The Crags at the unusually early hour of nine o'clock, and incidentally to pick up his evening clothes, which Thornton, in accordance with telephoned instructions, had left with the marine guard at the Government ferry house.
For Mrs. Wellington, whose sardonic sense of humor had not been lost in the rush of affairs, had assigned him to detective duty for the evening's function.
"McCall," she had said, "I want you to disguise yourself as a gentleman to-night and assist Chief Roberts's man in protecting the house from gentry who at times manage to gain access to the upper floors in the course of affairs of this sort. Evening dress will do—at least it is usually regarded as a good disguise, I believe."
He had received his orders, despite the sarcastic verbiage in which they were couched, with glowing emotions not easily concealed; they fitted perfectly with his preconceived determination to bring to a conclusion that night, once and for all, the situation which had brought him to The Crags.
He had, in short, resolved, come what might, to ransack Koltsoff's rooms before dawn—to dump the contents of all drawers in the middle of the floors, to cut with his knife any bags that might be locked, and in general to turn the suite inside out. For he had come to the conclusion that every one, save possibly Prince Koltsoff and the horses and dogs, knew whom he really was, and that being the case, further masquerading was nothing short of intolerable.
Then, too, yesterday's talk with Anne Wellington in Lover's Lane was running through his mind like a thread of gold, and clearly the time had come, either to meet her with identity unclouded in the minds of all, or go away and never see her again. As to the last—that depended on several things: upon second thought, upon one thing, upon Anne Wellington herself. Throughout the day in her various meetings with him, she had been markedly impersonal, tacit intimation that from now on so long as he cared to pose as an employee of the house, he must accept all the accruing conditions. He understood her position, of course, and as for his—well, he would attend to it that very night.
He found his bag waiting for him at the ferry and Prince Koltsoff at the designated place, the Reading Room. The Russian had not worked out of his irritation, not to say alarm, at the unaccountable disappearance of his chief lieutenant, but found some comfort in the fact that agents of the St. Petersburg State Department were already buzzing about Washington and Boston in regard to the matter of the Austrian mobilization plans. Armitage found him in a dogged, determined mood. He, too, was facing a situation which he meant to end that night, and his plans were all matured.
He went to his room, spent an hour or so dictating to his secretary, instructed him to call up the White Star Line in New York and book him for Friday, and then went down to the billiard room, where the men were engrossed in a close game between Marie and Willie Whipple. From here he wandered to the smoking apartment, which had begun to resemble the sample room of a wholesale liquor house. He had a servant pour him some Scotch whiskey, over which he sat for some time with thoughtful eyes, half closed. A growing uneasiness, which he could neither define nor overcome, crept over him and at length he arose and passed through the library, the morning-room, the drawing-room, even peering into the ballroom in his search for Miss Wellington. Miss Hatch was just emerging and the Prince eyed her in a peremptory way.
"Miss Wellington is not about?" he said, raising his eyebrows.