The two girls had been driven away from the embassy almost immediately after, to their unbounded relief, they had witnessed the escape of the supposed burglar over the wall.

Cecily had thought the good-bye of the ambassador curiously formal and restrained; but Herr Blitzen had escorted them down the embassy steps with the smiling intimation that he would be joining them again later in the day.

But he was not smiling when he followed von Ravenheim to the latter’s study, and, making no attempt now to hide his feelings, his face was black with anger. The ambassador appeared to be as calm and unruffled as ever, but his unusual pallor and the hard glitter of his eyes masked a dreadful fury.

“A very grave calamity has been narrowly averted, your Excellency,” he exclaimed the moment the door was closed behind them, “for, if that man had not escaped as he did, in half an hour at latest we should have the police thundering at the embassy door.”

“I doubt it,” scowled Herr Blitzen rudely. “The man may have had nothing to do with the police or the Secret Service, for it is my opinion that he is not that Gilbert Larose you say he is. You have no proof of it, and you have just let your suspicions run away with you.”

Von Ravenheim kept his temper. “I’ll explain everything to you in a moment, your Excellency,” he replied quietly, “but first, I want you to realise that, whoever he is, there has been rank treachery here by someone we trusted.” He spoke scornfully. “The man did not get out of that room without help, someone obtained that pistol for him from the shooting gallery, and someone hid him when we were searching last night.” He drew in a deep breath. “And I only realised a few minutes ago who is responsible for it all!”

“He was not hidden in the house,” snapped Blitzen. “We searched everywhere.”

“We did not!” retorted von Ravenheim sharply. He paused a moment and then added very quietly. “We did not look in the bathroom where that charming young lady was having her bath!”

Herr Blitzen screwed up his eyes, with his face now a scarlet color. “What do you mean?” he almost gasped.

“That Miss Cecily had taken pity on him,” replied the ambassador calmly, “that she was hiding him there.” He went on. “Yes, he was in the bathroom all the time we were talking outside to her sister. Then, when the search had died down and they had seen from the windows that we had finished combing through the courtyard, he went down the fire escape and hid in the shed.” He nodded. “They were quite right in thinking we should not look in there again.”

Blitzen was too dumbfounded to speak, but his face was still suffused in anger.

“And another thing,” went on von Ravenheim. “I learnt only a few minutes before these girls left that last night Miss Cecily came down from their rooms just before twelve and asked for a large brandy and soda and some biscuits. She said her sister was feeling faint.” He scoffed. “Biscuits for a faint person who had finished an excellent dinner less than three hours before!” He shook his head. “No, the refreshment was for that Larose, who had had nothing to eat all day!”

He now averted his eyes from Blitzen’s face, and looked down at his desk. He thought it wise not to be witnessing the other’s discomfiture.

“You see, your Excellency,” he continued, “when we come to consider, it all dovetails in accurately. Miss Cecily left the table during dinner, as she said, to go for her handkerchief. She was gone a long time, nearly ten minutes, and when she returned her face was flushed as if she had been running. Most probably she had or, at any rate, she had been exerting herself to get that man upstairs. Remember, the doctor said he would have been hardly able to walk. Then ——”

“But how the devil would she have known that the fellow was down in that cellar?” thundered Herr Blitzen.

Von Ravenheim looked down his nose. “She doesn’t speak Baltic, that young lady, and so, of course, she would understanding nothing when I said to you in the passage that Gilbert Larose was behind that door we were then passing and was going to be questioned at night!” His arm shot out. “Why, don’t you recollect she said she was feeling faint, immediately afterwards? She did look as white as a ghost! She had understood everything!”

“But how the —— how on earth,” stuttered Blitzen, “could she have opened the door to get him out? She had no keys!”

Von Ravenheim inclined his head. “On the contrary, she had mine!” He motioned with his head. “The bunch was in the pigeonhole just here and she had seen me take it out before I opened that cupboard to show them our silver.” He drove in his argument relentlessly. “Then see the state the girls were in this morning. Both pale and washed-out as if they were under some great nervous strain! I don’t suppose they had slept all night, wondering what had become of the man.”

“But why should they want to interfere?” demanded Herr Blitzen, looking very upset. “Even if they understood the language and caught your mad remark about the man, they wouldn’t know what you had meant!”

“Wouldn’t they!” commented von Ravenheim grimly. “They wouldn’t if they were just ordinary butterfly society girls, but they would”— his words came with a snap —“if they were highly trained women employed by the British Secret Service!”

Blitzen’s face had whitened and, although his words were bold, he spoke now with much less confidence. “Your suspicions again!” he exclaimed. “All your arguments are based on suspicions and no facts!”

Von Ravenheim shrugged his shoulders. “But just consider, your Excellency,” he said persuasively, “your association with those girls and the way you first came to know them. It is all clear to me now; and I shall always blame myself that I didn’t realise it soon enough to warn you.”

A long silence followed; and then the ambassador, abruptly turning the conversation, said very quietly. “Early this morning I received a phone message from a woman who works for us, and whose information is always reliable. She says Sir Howard Wake will be stopping with Lord Michael for this coming week-end at Tollesbury Hall. That’s Lord Michael’s place, near Maldon, in Essex.”

“How far from London?” asked Blitzen, his face still frowning.

“A little less than 40 miles,” replied the ambassador. He nodded. “It’s the ideal place for what we want, very lonely and right away from everywhere. It’s on the estuary of the Blackwater River; and the grounds are almost surrounded by muddy creeks. I can’t understand, for the life of me, how anybody came to build a house there.”

A short silence followed, and then Blitzen asked sharply. “And it’s got to be done this weekend?”

“Yes,” nodded the ambassador, “and so we have five days to find a reliable party. We must ——”

“I don’t want any more of your reliable parties,” snapped Blitzen savagely. “We’ll do it ourselves. We are capable of it?” He spoke sneeringly. “You won’t flinch, will you?”

The ambassador looked scornful. “Your Excellency knows I should never flinch at anything. It is not shooting them I mind; but I am bound to consider the terrible consequences which would fall upon our country if anything went wrong and we were caught.”

“We’ll risk it?” said Herr Blitzen curtly. “I’m tired of all this playing for safety.” An unhappy expression came into his face. “I’ll not go back to that hotel, either. I won’t go there again. So you’ll have my things sent for, and I’ll stay here for the rest of the time I’m in England. I shall not be going out much, and I’ll leave the cursed country for good next week.”

The ambassador did not attempt to dissuade him about the shooting, knowing it would be quite useless. “As you wish, your Excellency,” he said, “but I am going out now, and shall not be back until the afternoon. So you will be by yourself.”

“All right,” nodded Blitzen. “Give the key of that shooting gallery to me, and I’ll do some practice. I haven’t shot at a man since I killed that peasant at Doon for not taking off his cap to me.”

In the meantime Larose had been driven to the little flat he rented in Sloane Square. Then, refreshed by a hot bath, he rested for an hour before going out to lunch.

He felt very jubilant at the way in which he had escaped from the Baltic Embassy, but rather downcast that he had failed to find out who the men to be assassinated were, and very puzzled about the two girls.

That the latter were helping Herr Blitzen in some way there was not the slightest doubt, but that they were mixed up in the darker intrigues of von Ravenheim he could not bring himself to believe.

“And if it is found out by those brutes what they did for me,” he sighed, “heaven help them! They’ll be dealt with without mercy!”

As a welcome change to the shabby suit he had been wearing, he dressed himself carefully and now, clean-shaven and spruce, looked very different from the bedraggled creature who that very morning had climbed over the embassy wall.

He took a taxi to the fashionable Apollo restaurant and, deeming the occasion worthy of it, treated himself to a pint of the best champagne. The restaurant was being well patronised, and, with a spasm of unpleasant memory, he contrasted the bright and animated scene before him with the horrors of that underground chamber where, but a few hours previously, he had been awaiting torture and a dreadful death.

He had not long started upon his meal and had just finished his first glass of champagne, when he saw a well-dressed and distinguished-looking man enter the restaurant and start walking in his direction.

For a moment he just idly regarded the man as someone with whose face and figure he was faintly familiar. Then the blood surged into his head and he felt his heart beating like a sledge hammer as he recognised who the man was.

It was von Ravenheim, the Baltic Ambassador!

A few shuddering moments passed and then he saw von Ravenheim stop to exchange greetings with some members of a party at a large table. The greetings were animated and the ambassador was all smiles and courtly good nature.

Larose pulled himself together. He would give nothing away, and if von Ravenheim came nearer he would pretend not to know him. He turned his eyes away and, to distract his thoughts, took in the fresh and glowing beauty of a young girl at a near-by table.

Quite a minute passed, and, with his eyes upon his plate, he now proceeded calmly with his meal. Then a shadow fell upon his table; and, looking up, he saw von Ravenheim standing right before him.

The ambassador was smiling. “Is this seat engaged?” he asked.

Larose shook his head. “Not that I know of,” he replied and his voice was perfectly steady. Then he smiled in his turn. “At any rate, I am not expecting anyone.”

Von Ravenheim bowed and at once seated himself. Then a waiter appearing he thoughtfully considered the menu for a few moments before giving his order. Larose regarded him with a slight frown.

The waiter went off and von Ravenheim spoke at once. “And how are you feeling today, Mr. Larose?” he asked. “Quite all right?”

Larose looked as if he were mildly surprised at the question, but he replied most politely. “Yes, thank you, quite all right.”

“And you don’t mind speaking to me?” asked the ambassador genially.

“Certainly not!” replied Larose, as if rather puzzled. “Of course, I know who you are. You are Herr von Ravenheim, the Baltic Ambassador.”

Von Ravenheim nodded as if it were a good joke, and then made a shrugging little gesture. “Of course, it was annoying to me,” he said, “and I don’t pretend it wasn’t. But it’s all in the game we both play, you on one side and I on the other, and I don’t grudge you your success.”

Larose looked very mystified. “What success do you refer to, sir?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”

The ambassador laughed. “I see! You mean it was only half a success. You didn’t get what you wanted, but yet you still live to fight again. That’s the way we look at it, isn’t it? That’s your idea?”

“I’ve no idea,” smiled Larose. “Frankly, I don’t understand you at all.”

Von Ravenheim spoke a little sharply. “Well, I couldn’t put it more plainly if I spoke in my mother tongue.” He smiled mockingly. “But there, I don’t suppose you understand Baltic, either!”

The waiter arrived with a grilled sole and placed it before him. He attacked the fish with evident relish, and a short silence followed. Then he spoke again.

“Both those young ladies are very charming!” he said. He regarded Larose in a most friendly way. “I expect you three have done a lot of team-work together!” He nodded. “You know I’m beginning to think we have been holding you people too lightly. Your accomplishments and those of the girls are of a very high order, and I admit that, up to a certain point, you took us in completely.”

“Oh, we did, did we!”, laughed Larose. “The two young ladies and I?”

“Most certainly!” said von Ravenheim. He spoke earnestly. “But I’m quite willing to exchange information. So if you tell me how you came to get hold of that fellow, Pellew, I’ll put you wise as to how I came to find out who you were, and, unhappily, too late, to learn all about the young ladies.”

Larose spoke sharply. “Look here, sir, I don’t understand the meaning of anything you say. You’re making a great mistake somehow. Certainly, my name is Larose, and I know who you are”— he puckered up his face into a frown —“but, surely, we have never spoken to each other before!”

Von Ravenheim nodded understandingly. “So that’s the line you are going to take, is it?” He spoke as if very curious. “What do you hope to gain by it?”

“A little peace, perhaps,” said Larose. He smiled. “I’m not tasting any of this chicken.”

For quite a long moment the ambassador regarded him intently. Then he said thoughtfully, “You’re a very clever fellow! Yes, it would have been a pity if your talents had been lost to the world.”

Then both continued their meal in silence, with a ghost of a doubt now beginning to steal into von Ravenheim’s mind. He saw Larose was pretending to take no notice of him, and yet, every now and then, was casting furtive glances in his direction, as if he were very puzzled about him. And that would be, the ambassador had to admit, an action quite natural to a man who had been taken for someone he was not by somebody who would not admit his mistake.

Von Ravenheim sighed. “Have you got a double, Mr. Larose?”

The face of Larose brightened, “Ah, I understand your mistake now! Yes, I used to have one, but I’ve not heard of him for years.”

“Who was he?”

“I never could learn. All I know is that when I was in the C.I.D. I was several times supposed to have been seen in places I had never been near.”

“Thank you, Mr. Larose,” said von Ravenheim. “I see I was mistaken and I apologise.” He smiled, Larose thought, very disarmingly. “Still, I am glad that my stupid blunder has enriched me by making your acquaintance. I’d like to see more of you, and so will you come to dinner with me one night?”

“Not at the Embassy,” replied Larose laughingly. “It wouldn’t do. It would be sure to get known. Then if I had ever done work for the Secret Service, as of course, your question and my answer certainly imply, they would think at headquarters that I had got my fingers in your fabled money-chest.”

“But it wouldn’t be fabled to a man like you, Mr. Larose,” commented von Ravenheim significantly. Then seeing Larose frown, he added quickly, “But come, let’s talk of different things. The orchestra’s very good here, isn t it?”

Half an hour later, when Larose had parted with the ambassador and left the restaurant, he drew in a deep breath.

“Fancy the wretch trying to bribe me and inviting me to the Embassy for dinner. Why, I wouldn’t go there alone again for a million pounds! The bluff came off all right, but I wouldn’t have troubled to put it up if I hadn’t thought it might keep suspicion away from those girls. But he evidently knows all about them now, even to their understanding Baltic. But I say, I must warn them instantly. These devils will stick at nothing, and Blitzen will lead them blindfold into some trap! I’ll ring them up at once.”

But when he phoned the Arragon Hotel he learned to his great dismay that the Misses Castle and Herr Blitzen had all gone away, leaving no addresses. The busy clerk at the other end of the phone did not think to add that they had not all gone off together.

In the meanwhile, von Ravenheim was being driven to the British Museum, all the time going over in his mind his just-finished conversation with Larose. When in the latter’s presence he had been completely won over to the opinion that he had made a ghastly mistake, but now he was not feeling quite so certain.

One little thing in particular was disturbing him. As a connoisseur in eating and drinking, he had noted with approval Larose’s choice of the dishes upon the menu; and, in that respect, he had summed him up as a man who would get the best out of everything in the proper way. But now he remembered that, just after he had sat down at Larose’s table and begun to speak to him, Larose, although outwardly perfectly calm and collected, had started to sip his champagne.

And von Ravenheim now told himself that no man of Larose’s undoubted experience would ever sip any sparkling wine unless he were nervous and not thinking of what he was doing.

Then suddenly he snapped his fingers together with a gesture of intense annoyance. “Damnation,” he exclaimed. “I could have settled the matter in two seconds. I could have asked him to turn up his sleeve and show me only just above his wrist. I saw that fool prick the man there to save pulling off his coat when they were holding him down.”

In the early afternoon the ambassador was back again in the Embassy. He went into his study to find Herr Blitzen reclining in a big arm chair.

Although he was loth to mention the girls again, he thought it best to dispel any lingering doubts Herr Blitzen might hold as to exactly what their activities had been.

“I have just come from the British Museum,” he said. “I went into the library there and found out something more about the Miss Castles. I thought they were highly educated girls, and was of opinion that their conversation suggested a university training, and I have discovered I was right. When I looked up the Cambridge University Calendar I saw they had both been to Newnham College. Miss Cecily took first-class honors in modern languages; and ours was one included in the curriculum.”

Herr Blitzen nodded. “I am not surprised,” he said. “She is a wonderful girl!” He frowned. “Look here, Ravenheim, that she has been working against us makes no difference to my appreciation of her. It is only natural she should be on the side of her own people; and I don’t blame her for it.”

“No, that is quite understandable,” admitted the Ambassador. He nodded in his turn. “Still, it is well Your Excellency has found it all out before you ——” he hesitated —“had compromised yourself in any way.”

“But I intend to compromise myself, as you call it,” commented Herr Blitzen coldly, “just the same as if we had not found out anything.” He spoke decisively. “When I return to our country I shall take her back with me.”

Von Ravenheim felt a cold shiver run down his spine. This man who understood his countrymen so well that he could sway millions to his side, this man who in a few short years had raised his country from the depths up to the heights, never showing the slightest mercy to anyone who had stood in his way — was now becoming as weak as water in his infatuation for a woman of a hated race!

For the moment it flashed through the Ambassador’s mind that the man who had purged so many must now be purged himself. He must be got rid of before he had laid in ruins the mighty edifice he had built! He must be made to disappear as an arch betrayer of the people who had raised him to his despotic power.

And it would be easy, so easy now that he was away from all protection. Only one person in his own country knew he was not in his mountain home. Ah! but was that so? The British Secret Service had learnt it somehow and — no, no, he must not be dealt with in that way! It would not be safe! And besides, he was still needed. Without him the might of the fatherland might crumble again! Yes, he was still needed, for he was the only one who could hold it together! So, he must be saved in some other way.

All this long train of thought had run its dreadful course through von Ravenheim’s mind in the passing of a few seconds and, in the flight of another second, the solution of the whole matter came to him, too.

It was the girl who must be got rid of. She must be placed beyond his reach! She would soon be forgotten and then all would be well again!

He spoke most respectfully. “Your Excellency knows best, but how will you find Miss Cecily again?”

“That will be easy,” replied the Herr Blitzen. “She had two letters while she was at the hotel, both in the same handwriting, a woman’s. She read them at the breakfast table and happened to drop one as she was going out. I picked it up for her and saw the postmark was Haslemere. I’ve just looked the place up in your maps. It is not fifty miles from London, and I shall go to find her when we have done with those two men.”

He spoke with enthusiasm. “Ah, I will make a Baltic woman of her and she will work for us just as she now works for England. I shall have complete trust in her.” And von Ravenheim, who looked on all women as playthings, smiled pityingly to himself.

The Ambassador was never one who let the grass grow under his feet, and within an hour of his conversation with Herr Blitzen, he was setting in motion machinery, that useful as he was to the country, would instantly have earned for him the death penalty had his master only known.

He had summoned one of his most trusted agents, who arrived that night at the Embassy and was closeted with him for a long time.

In appearance, this agent was very different from what might have been expected of one who was to be commissioned forcibly to seize a young woman, drug her into unconsciousness if necessary, and carry her away to be held prisoner for an unspecified period of time. Indeed, it was even to be suggested to him that if she met with some accident it would not be a matter to grieve over.

Of Baltic nationality, the agent was quite a pleasant-looking man in the early forties. He was stout, with a large round face, and his big glasses gave him an air of kindly benevolence.

And he was pleasant and kind, too, in his ordinary life as a shrewd and prosperous business man, with a good house in Hampstead, a nice car and a seaside bungalow near Pevensey Bay.

But let anyone impugn the greatness of the country, let them say that she would never rule the world, and instantly an astounding transformation would take place. The lines of his face would harden, his eyes would glare balefully; and in his arguments he would be lost to all sense of right and wrong.

Secretly also, his emotions played upon by the leaders of his country, he would, if need arose, be quite prepared to back his words with deeds. Indeed, there was no danger he would not run and no suffering he would not put up with himself or inflict on others in his fervent patriotism. He would work without reward, too, and would obey like a well-trained dog.

Von Ravenheim explained what was wanted of him. There were two sisters, he said, whom it had just been found out were being employed by the British Secret Service. Mainly because of their good looks they had succeeded in obtaining the confidence of several Baltic agents, and now they were betraying them one by one.

The elder sister was the more to be feared; and she, at all events, must be dealt with at once. Their names were Cecily and Hilda Castle and their home was at Haslemere in Hampshire.

“Now Herr Sharlen,” went on von Ravenheim impressively, “what I want you to do is this. Go down to Haslemere tomorrow, take care that no suspicions are aroused, but find out everything you can about the girls. The elder one must be got hold of somehow and taken to a place I will tell you later. But everything must be arranged so that no one knows what has happened to her. She must be seized when she is quite alone.”

“Is their house in the town of Haslemere?” asked Herr Sharlen.

“I don’t know,” replied the Ambassador, “and that’s what you’ve got to find out. You must get a grip of the whole situation; what are her habits and where it will be easiest to get hold of her.”

“But what if she isn’t at home?”

“Then you must do your best to find out where she’s gone. In a little place like Haslemere most things are known. Now, the matter is urgent, and by the end of the week the whole thing must be done.”

“All right,” nodded Herr Sharlen, “and if I’ve anything to report I’ll be here again tomorrow night. If I don’t come, I’ll ring you up from another town. You see, these enquiries may take a day or two.”

But he was back again the next night and his news was most satisfactory. Both the girls were at home and their house............