"Oh, it's only to satisfy idle curiosity," O'Rane answered. "The party starts out from Bayreuth, leaving Sonia and Webster to follow. They don't follow, and Sonia flies off north to Nürnberg and wires for money. That means there was a scene—he probably proposed or tried to kiss her or something—and she lets him have it between the eyes. Before she receives the money she finds she's put her head in a hornet's nest—armies mobilizing on both sides of her—and turns south to Munich to get away in the opposite direction. She's begged, borrowed or stolen enough to reach Innspruck and there she's stuck. Old Dainton's wiring money all over the globe, but I don't suppose a penny of it reaches her. As like as not she's been arrested."
"And what then?" I asked.
"If she behaves herself they may let her go as soon as they've finished moving troops. If she doesn't, they'll keep her till the end of the war."
He walked up and down with his hands in his pockets and a pipe thrust jauntily out of one corner of his mouth. The story of the missing American girls was still fresh in my mind, and I felt little of his apparent cheerfulness.
"It's the deuce of a position," said Loring. "When will Dainton be through with the Ambassador?"
"You can ring him up now," said O'Rane. "They'll have been very polite, and they'll do all they can, and the matter will receive attention, and in the meantime they've just as much power as the man in the moon. Dear man, the whole of Germany's littered with pukka Americans this time of year, and the Embassy isn't going to trouble about us till it's gathered in its own waifs and strays. Dainton's just wasting their time and his. Anybody else got any helpful suggestions?"
"You're a shade discouraging, Raney," I said.
He laughed without malice, and his black eyes shone with the excitement of coming battle.
"I'm just blowing away the froth," he explained. "If you want business, here you are. Jim, will you lend me five hundred pounds?"
Loring nodded without a word.