"You heard them coming," she interrupted.

The three expected guests arrived almost together, bringing with them, at any rate so far as Chalmers and Naida were concerned, an atmosphere of light-heartedness which was later on to make the little dinner party a complete success. Naida, too, was in black, a gown simpler than Maggie's but full of distinction. She wore no jewellery except a wonderful string of pearls. Her black hair was brushed straight back from her forehead but drooped a little over her ears. She seemed to bring with her a larger share of girlishness than any of them had previously observed in her, as though she had made up her mind for this one evening to cast herself adrift from the graver cares of life and to indulge in the frivolities which after all were the heritage of her youth. She sat at Nigel's right hand and plied him with questions as to the lighter side of his life,--his favourite sport, books, and general occupation. She gave evidences of humour which delighted everybody, and Nigel, though he would at times have welcomed, and did his best to initiate, an incursion into more serious subjects, found himself compelled to admire the tact with which she continually foiled him.

"It is a mistake," she declared once, "to believe that a woman is ever serious unless she is forced to be. All our natural proclivities are towards gaiety. We are really b.u.t.terflies by instinct, and we are at our best when we are natural. Don't you agree with me, Maggie?"

"From the bottom of my heart," Maggie a.s.sented. "Nothing but conscience ever induces me to pull a long face and turn my thoughts to serious things. And I haven't a great deal of conscience."

"So you see," Naida continued, smiling up at her host, "when you try to get a woman to talk politics or sociology with you, you are brushing a little of the down off her wings. We really want to be told--other things."

"I should imagine," he replied, "that my s.e.x frequently indulged you."

"Not so much as I should desire," she a.s.sured him. "I have somehow or other acquired an undeserved reputation for brains. In Russia especially, when I meet a stranger, they don't even look at my frock or the way my hair is done. They plunge instead into a subject of which I know nothing--philosophy or history, or international politics."

"Do you know nothing of international politics?" Nigel asked.

"A home thrust," she declared, laughing. "I suppose that is a subject upon which I have some glimmerings of knowledge. Really not very much, though, but then I have a theory about that. I think sometimes that the clearest judgments are formed by some one who comes a little fresh to a subject, some one who hasn't been dabbling in it half their lifetime and acquired prejudices. Do you always provide strawberries for your guests, Lord Dorminster? If so, I should like to come and live here."

"If you will promise to come and live here," he replied, "I will provide strawberries if I have to start a nursery garden in Jersey."

"Maggie," Naida announced across the table, "Lord Dorminster has proposed to me. The matter of strawberries has brought us together. I don't think I shall accept him. There are no means of making him keep his bargain."

"He'd make an awfully good husband," Maggie declared. "If no one else wants me, I shall probably marry him myself some day."

Naida shook her head.

"Lord Dorminster is more my type," she declared. "Besides, you have had your chance if you really wanted him. I have a great friend in Russia who prophesies that I shall never marry. That does not please me. I think not to be married is the worst fate that can happen to any woman."

"The remedy," Nigel told her, "is in your own hands."

Jesson, quieter than the others, was still an interesting personality, often intervening with a shrewd remark and listening to the sallies of the others with a humorous gleam in his spectacle-shielded eyes. When at last the girls left them for a time, Nigel led the way at once into the library, where coffee and liqueurs were served.

"I expect the others will find their way here in a few minutes," he said, as the door closed behind Brookes and his satellite. "You had something to say to me, Chalmers, about Mr. Jesson here."

"All that I have to say is in the nature of a testimonial," the young American replied. "Jesson was easily one of our best men in Europe. He resigned a few months ago simply because he wants a job with you fellows."

"I don't quite understand," Nigel began.

"Let me explain," Jesson begged. "I spent the last three years poking about Europe, and so far as the United States is concerned, there's nothing doing. My reports aren't worth much more than the paper they are written on, and while I'm drawing my money from Washington, it's not my business to collect information that affects other countries. That's why I've sent in my resignation. There are great events brewing eastwards, Lord Dorminster, and I want to take a hand in the game."

"Do you want to work for us?" Nigel asked.

"You're right," was the quiet reply. "I guess that's how I've figured it out. You see, I'm one of those Americans who still consider themselves half English. Next to the United States, Great Britain is the country for me. I know what I'm talking about, Lord Dorminster, and I've come to the conclusion that there's a lot of trouble in store for you people."

"I'm pretty well convinced of that myself," Nigel agreed, "but you know how things are with us. We have a democratic Government who have placed their whole faith in the League of Nations, and who are absolutely and entirely anti-militarist. On paper, the governments of Russia, Germany, and most of the other countries of Europe, are of the same ilk. Some of us--my uncle was one--who have studied history and who know something of the science of international politics, realise perfectly well that no Empire can be considered secure under such conditions. This country swarms with foreign secret-service men. What they are planning against us, Heaven knows!"

"Heaven and Naida Karetsky," Chalmers intervened softly.

"You believe that she is our enemy?" Nigel asked, with a look of trouble in his eyes.

"She is Immelan's friend," Chalmers reminded him.

"There was a man named Atcheson," Jesson began quietly--

Nigel nodded.

"He was one of the men my uncle sent out. The first one was stabbed in Petrograd. Jim Atcheson was poisoned and died in Berlin."

"There was rather a scare in a certain quarter about Atcheson," Jesson observed. "He was supposed to have got a report through to the late Lord Dorminster."

"He got it through all right," Nigel replied. "My uncle was busy decoding it, seated in this room, at that table, when he died."

"His death was very sudden," Jesson ventured.

"I have not the faintest doubt but that he was murdered," Nigel declared. "The doc.u.ment upon which he was working disappeared entirely except for one sheet."

"You have that one sheet?" Jesson asked eagerly.

Nigel produced it from his pocketbook, smoothed it cut, and laid it upon the table.

"There are two things worth noticing here," he pointed out. "The first is that the actual name of a town in Russia is given, and a telephone number in London. Kroten I have looked up on the map. It seems to be an unimportant place in a very desolate region. The telephone number is Oscar Immelan's."

"That is interesting, though not surprising," Jesson declared. "Immelan, as you of course know, is one of your enemies, one of those who are working in this country for purposes of his own. But as regards Kroten, may I ask where you obtained your information about the place?"

Nigel dragged down the atlas and showed them the paragraph. Jesson read it with a faint smile upon his lips.

"I fancy," he remarked, "that this is a little out of date. I should like, if you have no objection, to start for Kroten this week."

"Good heavens! Why?" Nigel exclaimed.

"I can scarcely answer that question," Jesson said. "I am like a man with a puzzle board and a heap of loose pieces. Kroten is one of those pieces, but I haven't commenced the fitting-in process yet. Here," he said, "is as much as I can tell you about it. There are three cities, situated in different countries in the world, which are each in their way connected with the danger which is brewing for this country. I have heard them described as the three secret cities. One is in Germany. I have been there at the risk of my life, and I came away simply puzzled.

Kroten is the next, and of the third I have still to discover the whereabouts. Are you willing, Lord Dorminster, to let me act for you abroad? I require no salary or remuneration of any sort. I am a wealthy man, and investigations of this kind are my one hobby. I shall not move without your permission, although I recognise, of course, that your own position is entirely an unofficial one. If you will trust me, however, I promise that all my energies shall be devoted to the interests of this country."

Nigel held out his hand.

"It is a pact," he decided. "Before you leave, I will give you the whole of my uncle's brief correspondence with Sidwell. You may be able to gather from it what he was after. Sidwell, you remember, was stabbed in a cafe in the slums of Petrograd."

"I remember quite well," Jesson admitted quietly. "I knew Sidwell. He was a clever person in his way, but he relied too much upon disguises. I fancy that I hear the voices of the ladies coming. I shall just have time to tell you rather a curious coincidence."

The two men waited eagerly. Jesson touched with his forefinger the sheet of paper which he had been studying.

"Sidwell," he concluded, "could not have been so far off the mark. The man with whom he was spending the evening in that cafe was a mechanic from Kroten."

CHAPTER IX