Both of them took a taxi to the fine house in Park Lane where Ortmann assumed the rôle of society man. At ten o’clock a visitor was ushered in, and proved to be the young man whose real name was Schrieber. Apparently he had just returned from a journey, and had come straight from the station in order to make some secret report to Ortmann.
When the three were closeted together the young German, who passed as a Swiss, produced from his pocket three small photographs showing the interior of a room taken from different angles, but always showing the fireplace.
“Excellent!” declared Drost, as he examined all three prints beneath the strong light. “You have done splendidly.”
“Yes, all is in readiness. I have made friends with the maids, and when I return I shall be welcomed. No breath of suspicion will be aroused. We have now but to wait our time.”
And the three conspirators—men who were working so secretly, yet with such dastardly intent in the enemy’s cause—laughed as they helped themselves to cigars from the big silver box.
Nearly three weeks passed when, one day while Seymour Kennedy was sitting in Ella’s pretty little drawing-room, he accidentally noticed the artistic blue-and-white vase, and remarking how unusual was the shape, his beloved related how it had come into her possession.
Kennedy reflected for a few seconds, his brows knit in deep thought.
“Curious that your father desired to match a vase like this! With what object, I wonder?”
“He told me that he wanted it for a friend.”
“H’m! I wonder why his friend was so eager to match it?” was the air-pilot’s remark. “And, again, why did he send you to buy it, when his friend could surely have done so?”