Part 55

Halkett's eyes opened at that.

Warner went on:

"That old rascal, Wildresse, it seems, is nothing but a paid informer. He forced this girl Philippa to engage in the same filthy business. She even admitted that old Wildresse had set her on me! No doubt he had decided to watch you himself. And do you know what I think?"

Halkett was very wide-awake now. He said:

"I believe I do know what you are thinking. And I believe you are pretty nearly right."

"That the assault on you was merely a local matter instigated by Wildresse?"

"It wouldn't surprise me."

"I think it was, too. Some of his thugs did it. He had made up his mind about you. But somebody must have tipped him off to watch you."

"Probably."

"I am sure of it. The three German-appearing men who tried to pick a quarrel with you over the Archduke's murder were not the men who tried to frisk you for your papers. They were 'provocative agents' in the pay of a foreign government--hired opportunists who were expected to pick something of value out of any confusion attending a general row fomented by themselves."

"Who told you that?"

"Philippa."

Halkett, now thoroughly interested, looked keenly at Warner through the thin haze of his pipe.

"These three agents," continued Warner, "were certainly in close communication with the men who have been following you. And at least one of those men was seated at the table directly behind you when Wildresse's thugs tried to frisk you for documents. So you see that Wildresse, prodded by the French secret police, and these provocative agents, prodded by the people who are following you, who, in turn, are spurred by the German Government, were all playing at cross purposes, but with you as a common objective. A fine nest of intrigue I led you into when I took you to the Cabaret de Biribi! I'm terribly sorry, Halkett. But I believe that some good has come out of that mess--a fragment of a letter, written in German, which Philippa gave me in the meadow this afternoon.

"She found it under the wrecked table behind you. Nobody has seen it except myself and Philippa; and the child cannot read much German. But, studying it and seeing your name in the letter, she was clever enough to bring it to me. Here it is." He laid it on the table under the Englishman's eyes.

While Halkett remained absorbed in his translation, Warner paced the garden, deeply occupied with his own uneasy cogitations. After a little while Halkett spoke to him in an altered voice, and he turned and came swiftly back to the arbor.

The Englishman, looking up, said gravely:

"Concerning myself, there seems to remain now nothing worth concealing from you.... Perhaps you had better know the truth. I happen to be an officer temporarily serving with the Intelligence Department; I had just been assigned to duty in New York when the Harkness shell was stolen. The general alarm went out. Gray, a brother officer, and I chanced to stumble on evidence which sent us aboard an Antwerp steamer. Our birds were aboard. We pulled every string available, and, passing over the details of the affair, he and I managed to recover the drawings, specifications, and formula which had been stolen. Some of these papers are in that envelope.

"Every German agent in Europe knows we have them. My Government, for some reason or other, instructs me to remain here for the present. As Gray and I are known, doubtless somebody will appear and take the drawings out of our hands, because the chances are that I'd be murdered before I reached Calais. That is the situation, Warner."

"Has Gray any of the drawings?"

"He has."

"I understand."

"And that is why I am worrying about Gray. They'd not hesitate to kill him if they thought there was a chance that he had any of the papers."

Warner said:

"They couldn't have killed him. A crime on the public highway cannot remain undiscovered very long."

Halkett sat thoughtfully stroking Ariadne. Presently he looked up with a slight smile.

"Well, what are you going to do with the girl Philippa?" he inquired.

"Now, what do you think of a situation like this?" demanded Warner, half laughing, half vexed. "I told her to go home. She positively refuses. You can't blame the child. The dirty business there has disgusted her. This seems to be a final revolt. But--what would you do if a young girl wished herself on you?"