“Who is Baron Kosuba?” Phil asked eagerly.
“Why, don’t you know?” she asked. “He is one of Japan’s richest men. He is the president and owner of her largest steamship company.
“I wish you would talk to Mr. Impey,” she added. “He told me in strictest confidence that the Japanese statesmen could not be trusted—that they were determined to force a war very soon.”
Phil’s face became suddenly thoughtful as he felt Helen’s eyes upon him.
“So he has been giving the identical medicine to both sides,” he thought.
“But why all this mystery?” Helen asked, suddenly remembering that Phil had not as yet enlightened her. “Why shouldn’t Mr. Impey have been in Yokohama to-day?”
Phil was silent, thinking how best to avert an awkward situation.
“You don’t mean to insinuate that Mr. Impey was the man you overheard on the train?” she exclaimed. “Why, the idea is ridiculous. He couldn’t be such a blackguard.”
“It may have been only a coincidence,” Phil hastened to say, in an attempt to relieve the tension, for he saw that Helen was indignant at his presumption in accusing a friend of being a traitor. “I didn’t see the man; his voice was that of an Englishman. Impey is an Englishman, you know.”
“He is not an Englishman,” Helen exclaimed eagerly. “His mother was not English; she was an East Indian of high rank. His father was in the British East India Company first, and afterward in the Chinese Customs service. Mr. Impey was born in the Orient. He speaks and writes Chinese and in that way can read the classic Japanese.”