nly about to take her place
amongst the few people over whom this tragedy loomed.

CHAPTER XXII

ACTIVITY OF AUSTRIAN SPIES

Louise left her brougham in Piccadilly and walked across the Green
Park. Bellamy, who was waiting, rose up from a seat, hat in hand.
She took his arm in foreign fashion. They walked together towards
Buckingham Palace--a strangely distinguished-looking couple.

"My dear David," she said, "the man perplexes me. To look at him,
to hear him speak, one would swear that he was honest. He has just
those clear blue eyes and the stolid face, half stupid and half
splendid, of your athletic Englishman. One would imagine him doing
a foolishly honorable thing, but he is not my conception of a
criminal at all."

Bellamy kicked a pebble from the path. His forehead wore a perplexed
frown.

"He didn't give himself away, then?"

"Not in the least."

"He took you out and showed you the spot where it happened?"

"Without an instant's hesitation."

"As a matter of curiosity," asked Bellamy, "did he try to make
love to you?"

She shook her head.

"I even gave him an opening," she said. "Of flirtation he has no
more idea than the average stupid Englishman one meets."

Bellamy was silent for several moments.

"I can't believe," he said, "that there is the least doubt but that
he has the money and the portfolio. I have made one or two other
inquiries, and I find that his firm was in very low water indeed
only a week ago. They were spoken of, in fact, as being hopelessly
insolvent. No one can imagine how they tided over the crisis."

"The man who was watching for you?" she inquired.

"He makes no mistakes," Bellamy assured her. "He saw Laverick enter
that passage and come out. Afterwards he went back to his office,
although he had closed up there and had been on his homeward way.
The thing could not have been accidental."

"Why do you not go to him openly?" she suggested. "He is, after
all, an Englishman, and when you tell him what you know he will be
very much in your power. Tell him of the value of that document.
Tell him that you must have it."

"It could be done," Bellamy admitted. "I think that one of us must
talk plainly to him. Listen, Louise,--are you seeing him again?"

"I have invited him to come to the Opera House to-night."

"See what you can do," he begged. "I would rather keep away from
him myself, if I can. Have you heard anything of Streuss?"

She shrug