her, though they did not know it. Herr Van de Greutz knew and cared
nothing about her; he was not even aware that she was English, though,
of course, old Marthe was.

If the conversation had touched on the famous explosive at dinner
time, Julia would have known it; she was always on the watch for some
such occurrence. Unfortunately it had not, although, as she saw
plainly, the German was the sort of man with whom Van de Greutz would
discuss such things. She had still another chance of hearing
something; she would soon have to take the coffee into the laboratory;
they might be speaking of it then. She remembered once before Van de
Greutz had spoken of it to a scientific guest at such a time; she had
then heard some unenlightening technical details, which might have
been of some value to a chemist, but were of no use at all to her
ignorance. It was hard to come thus near, and yet be as far off as
ever, but such things are likely to occur when one is in pursuit of
anything, Julia knew that; she was prepared to wait, by and by she
would find out what it was she wanted, and then--

A bell rang peremptorily; she hastily poured the strong black coffee
into the two cups, and put a bottle of Schiedam on the tray. As she
did so she noticed that it was nearly empty, so she fetched another
full one, and added that to the tray. The bell did not ring again,
although getting the second bottle had hindered her, for by this time
the chemists had forgotten they wanted coffee. When she entered the
laboratory, Herr Van de Greutz had just taken a bottle from the lower
part of a cupboard near the door. Second shelf from the floor, five
bottles from the left-hand corner. Julia observed the place with
self-trained accuracy as she passed Herr Van de Greutz with the tray,
which she carried to the table far down the room.

"This is it," Van de Greutz said; "a small quantity only, you see, but
the authorities have a ridiculous objection to one's keeping any large
one of explosive. Of course, I have more, in a stone house in my
garden; it is perhaps safer so, seeing its nature, and the fact that
one is always liable to small accidents in a laboratory."

Julia put down the tray, but upset some of the coffee. Seeing that
excitement had not usually the effect of making her hand unsteady, it
is possible accident had not much to do with it. However, it happened;
she carefully wiped it up, and the two chemists, paying no more
attention to her than i