“Colonel Hodson,” he declared, “you’re the one man in the States I’ve been longing2 to have a chat with ever since I landed. I’m afraid I’m responsible for bringing you back from your vacation.”
The newcomer smiled slightly as he shook hands. He was a tall, fine-looking man, with strong features and a dignified3 carriage. His eyes wandered from Grant to Stoneham who was seated at the table writing a letter.
“This is my friend, Mr. Dan Stoneham, late editor of the New York,” Grant explained. “He is with me up to the eyes in this business. Dan, come here and shake hands with Colonel Hodson, head of the—well, what do you call your department now, Hodson? Home Secret Service it used to be before the word ‘Secret Service’ became taboo4.”
“‘Service A’ we call it now,” Hodson confided5. “Nothing much in a name, anyway. And nothing much in the job lately. I’d been over in Honolulu a month when they cabled for me.”
Grant pushed up an easy-chair, produced cigars, whisky and a syphon, and rang for ice.
“I was afraid they weren’t going to send for you after all,” he observed. “They didn’t seem in any way anxious to put me in touch with you. Tell me honestly, Hodson, what do they think of me in the Department?”
“They are interested,” the latter acknowledged, stretching himself out and lighting6 a cigar. “They have a great respect for your insight on all ordinary matters, but in the present instance they are inclined to think that you have a bee in your bonnet7.”
“I was afraid so,” Grant admitted. “I’m not surprised at it.”
“They think that you’ve been mixing with the foreigners, and especially with the British, pretty freely, over on the other side,” Hodson continued, “and that you’ve got a lot of un-American stuff in your blood. You know Secret Service and foreign plots and all these ‘German cutn Japanese’ scares don’t cut much ice in Washington these days. You should hear Senator Ross on the subject.”
“I’ve heard him,” Grant groaned8. “I know the spirit, too, and I know perfectly9 well, Hodson, that if I’d been living in America for the last twenty years and hadn’t been out of it except as a tourist, I should probably be feeling exactly the same way. Ross is wrong. I should have been wrong. There’s a very terrible crisis looming10 up before us. You and I, Hodson, are going to avert11 the greatest calamity12 with which the world has ever been threatened.”
“Let me warn you,” Hodson said, “my instructions are to go dead slow with you. I am to do nothing which will make a laughing stock of the Department or which will evoke13 even questions from nations with whom we are upon friendly terms.”
“I quite understand your position,” Grant assured him. “When you’re convinced, as you will be soon, you’ll be with me body and soul. Until then, I’ll take you by the hand carefully.”
“Let’s get to work then,” Hodson suggested. “Give me an outline of your suspicions and show me the loose threads that you can’t lay hold of yourself.”
“Right!” Grant declared. “First of all then. In Monte Carlo I came across a plot to prevent that invitation being sent to America to join the Pact14 of Nations. I frustrated15 it. Over dinner some time I’ll tell you how. That doesn’t matter for the moment. The information upon which I acted came partly from the Princess von Diss, who was sent from Berlin to Monte Carlo to see what I was up to there, and partly from a dancing girl, the sweetheart of Count Itash, a young man who has held various diplomatic positions in Japan and whom I should describe as Japan’s arch intriguer16, just as Cornelius Blunn is Germany’s. The information she gave me was correct.”
“Is this man Itash the sort of person who gives away his secrets to his feminine companions?” Hodson asked quietly.
“Not in the least,” Grant acknowledged. “As a matter of fact, we have only just discovered the truth. He talks in his sleep. The girl unfortunately is madly in love with him and only gives him away piecemeal17. A few days ago in a fury of jealousy—Itash has brought another woman out here—she told me that he was worried about Japan’s contracts with the steel houses here, in addition to their importations from Germany. I spoke18 to Washington on the telephone. They have agreed to take the matter up. They have already applied19 to their own steel companies for particulars of steel supplied to Japan during the last two years, and when they get it, which they will before the Limitation of Armaments Conference, if will be a staggerer. That’s only a tiny little link in the chain, though. Japan’s clever enough to wriggle20 out of that, or to keep the thing going until it’s too late. It just helps, that’s all. Last night the girl was fool enough to try and shoot her rival. She escaped arrest and came to me. She declared that unless Itash promised to give up the other woman she would tell me wonderful things. We telephoned Itash, who was still ignorant of his nocturnal indiscretions and who came round at once. His attitude towards the girl was brutal21 and I am convinced that she was on the point of making a full disclosure of all she knew. Cornelius Blunn, however, had discovered the leakage22, and Blunn, I am sorry to tell you, Hodson, is, I believe, on very friendly terms with certain members of your police organisation23 here. They managed to effect the girl’s arrest just as Itash had reduced her to a state of fury, and they did their best, acting24 under special orders, to prevent her saying a word to me. She told me one thing in French. She whispered that the whole secret of a great internal conspiracy25 against America could be discovered in a little gold casket which never leaves Blunn’s possession. It is at present in room twelve hundred and eight of this hotel.”
“Has she anything more to tell?” Hodson asked.
“I know that she has,” Grant assured him. “But, although the charge against her can scarcely be a very serious one, as the girl was uninjured, they refuse to allow me, or even a lawyer, whom I engaged, to see her at all. She is at present in the Tombs. The charge against her, I suppose, could be handled in many different ways, but can she be kept legally from seeing either a lawyer or a friend?”
“She cannot,” Hodson declared.
“Then let this be your start,” Grant begged. “Go to the Tombs this minute. You have the right to insist upon seeing her. Do so. Tell her you come from me. Here is my card.”
“Accompany me,” Hodson suggested after a moment’s reflection. “We will interview the young lady together.”
Colonel Hodson, it appeared, was after all a little sanguine26. At Police Headquarters he left Grant in the waiting room while he made his way to visit a personage in authority. Instead of the few minutes he had mentioned, however, he was gone nearly half an hour. When he returned there was a marked change in his manner. He seemed, subconsciously27, to be treating Grant with a little more respect.
“Well, you’re right, so far, Slattery,” he confessed. “There’s a conspiracy here to keep that young woman from communicating with anybody at all, a conspiracy which is entirely28 against police regulations and which is going to lead to a whole heap of trouble later on. However, there it is, and they’re in it deep enough to run a pretty considerable risk. They’ve tried every mortal bluff29 they can think of, but their present attitude clean gives the show away. In an hour’s time they will be compelled to let me visit her. Until then we’ll take a drive round and I’d like to hear a little more of your story. I’ll frankly30 admit, Slattery,” he acknowledged as they left the place together, “that my interest is growing.”
They drove about for an hour, and Grant confided to his companion a great deal of the result of his wanderings and investigations31 during the last two years. Hodson listened imperturbably32. He realised the note of conviction in his companion’s tone but he himself kept an open mind. Notwithstanding his official position, he had the instincts and the outlook of a citizen. Deliberate warfare33 with its hideous34 wastage of human life and its ghastly uncertainty35 seemed to him a visionary idea, a phantasy of the disordered and over-imaginative brain. A single person of disordered mentality36 might brood upon such a cataclysm37; no normal group of persons in these sober days was likely to tolerate the idea. All these little happenings and tendencies to which Grant alluded38 might so easily be traced to lesser39 things. He made only one comment.
“Supposing for a moment,” he said, “that there was the least truth in your prophecy and that a naval40 attack from outside was to be supplemented by an enormous and wide-reaching internal conspiracy, do you realise what a terrible reflection that would be upon my Department?”
“I can’t help it, Hodson,” Grant declared. “Of course I realise it. I’m not going to blame you. No one can be blamed for not searching for what they don’t believe exists, but I do beg you to remember that if there’s a thousand to one chance that my view of things is correct, you ought not to leave my side until we’re through with this business. And so far as you personally are concerned, now listen. During the last two years I have submitted between forty and fifty reports dealing41 with this matter to the Department in Washington. Have those reports been handed on to you?”
“Not one of them,” Hodson replied. “I had no idea, even, that you had ever made them.”
“Then you must remember,” Grant pointed42 out, “that at the worst, the chief responsibility rests with those higher up. My reports should every one of them have come to you, and you should have made the investigations on this side to which they pointed. Can you tell me offhand43 whether there are any great patriotic44 societies formed to keep Germans together in this country?”
“There’s one,” Hodson acquiesced45. “‘Brothers in Love,’ they call it—kind of Odd Fellows affair. It exists chiefly for charity and does an enormous amount of good. It must have two or three million members.”
“Anything with the Japanese?”
“There is one, but I don’t know much about it,” Hodson confessed. “It is rather a different class thing, founded to teach the lower classes the arts of agriculture and to keep the others in touch with Japanese culture and literature.”
“Quite so,” Grant murmured. “I haven’t the faintest doubt that those societies are on the surface everything they appear to be. Neither have I the slightest doubt that behind them, committee behind committee, are the people who deal with Blunn and Itash.”
Hodson smiled a little doubtfully.
“I’m in a receptive frame of mind, Slattery,” he admitted, “but don’t try me too high. Processions, brass46 bands, and picnics are all I can think of in connection with the ‘Brothers in Love.’ The Japanese I never quite understood. Here we are back again. I see the governor’s car here. Now we ought to have some fun.”
Grant again waited for his friend, who this time was gone for a little more than ten minutes. When he returned there was a steely glint in his eye.
“Slattery,” he announced, “you win all round, so far as this girl’s concerned. They’ve had her up before headquarters while we’ve been away, discharged her, and they have the effrontery47 to assure me that they let her walk out of the court without asking where she was going to, or without having her followed. They’ve just turned her loose in New York and left us to hunt. I don’t like it. Come along!”
“Where to?” Grant asked.
“To see some friends of mine, who can tackle this job,” was the stern reply. “We ought to be able to find her before many hours are passed.”
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1
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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4
taboo
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| n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止 | |
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5
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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6
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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7
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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8
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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11
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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evoke
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| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
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pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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intriguer
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| 密谋者 | |
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piecemeal
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| adj.零碎的；n.片，块；adv.逐渐地；v.弄成碎块 | |
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18
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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wriggle
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| v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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leakage
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| n.漏，泄漏；泄漏物；漏出量 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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26
sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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subconsciously
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| ad.下意识地，潜意识地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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32
imperturbably
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| adv.泰然地，镇静地，平静地 | |
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33
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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34
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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mentality
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| n.心理，思想，脑力 | |
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37
cataclysm
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| n.洪水，剧变，大灾难 | |
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38
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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40
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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41
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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42
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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43
offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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44
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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45
acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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47
effrontery
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| n.厚颜无耻 | |
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