“Certainly not,” declared his father.
“How did you make Armitage’s acquaintance?” asked the Ambassador. “Some one must have been responsible for introducing him—if you can remember.”
Dick laughed.
“It was in the Monte Rosa, at Geneva. Shirley and I had been chaffing each other about the persistence with which Armitage seemed to follow us. He was taking déjeuner at the same hour, and he passed us going out. Old Arthur Singleton—the ubiquitous—was talking to us, and he nailed Armitage with his customary zeal and introduced him to us in quite the usual American fashion. Later I asked Singleton who he was and he knew nothing about him. Then Armitage turned up on the steamer, where he made himself most agreeable. Next, Senator Sanderson vouched for him as one of his Montana constituents. You know the rest of the story. I swallowed him whole; he called at our house on several occasions, and came to the post, and I asked him to my supper for the Spanish attaché.”
“And now, Dick, we want you to find him and get him into a room with ourselves, where we can ask him some questions,” declared Judge Claiborne.
They discussed the matter in detail. It was agreed that Dick should remain at the Springs for a few days to watch Chauvenet; then, if he got no clue to Armitage’s whereabouts, he was to go to Montana, to see if anything could be learned there.
“We must find him—there must be no mistake about it,” said the Ambassador to Judge Claiborne, when they were alone. “They are almost panic-stricken in Vienna. What with the match burning close to the powder in Hungary and clever heads plotting in Vienna this American end of the game has dangerous possibilities.”
“And when we have young Armitage—” the Judge began.
“Then we shall know the truth.”
“But suppose—suppose,” and Judge Claiborne glanced at the door, “suppose Charles Louis, Emperor-king of Austria-Hungary, should die—to-night—to-morrow—”