“And is that the last you have heard of your flask?”
“No. On the night of my arrival in Washington I accompanied my cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Ogden”—McLane moved suddenly, but Barclay was intent on his story and did not observe him closely—“to the Japanese Embassy. There I thought I saw Yoshida Ito, and walked down a hall hoping to come up with him, and entered a room opening from it. I did not find Ito in the room, but my silver flask, or its duplicate, was lying on the desk.”
“What did you do then?” questioned McLane.
“Pocketed the flask,” briefly. “And the next day had its contents tested by a chemist.”
“With what result?”
“A blank—it contained saki, the national drink of Japan.”
CHAPTER X
FREAKS OF MEMORY
Leonard McLane, tilted back in his revolving chair, regarded Julian Barclay in silence for several seconds before speaking.
“Have you the flask with you?” he asked.
For answer Barclay drew it from his pocket and laid it on the desk. McLane bent eagerly over the flask and examined it with special care. The silver filigree work over the glass flask was made into a chrysanthemum pattern, while the lower half was a solid silver cup, the workmanship of the latter also carrying out the chrysanthemum pattern.