There are some astonishments which cannot be translated verbally. So great was Mathison\'s that he could neither think nor move. The aftermath of a thunderbolt affects you like that. When a certain phase of the hypnosis passed, and Mathison began to get the hang of life again, he became conscious of the porter. He drew out a bill and presented it.

"Thanks. Uncle Sam will be very grateful to you. Any idea what was in this box?"

"De lady said it was military, suh."

Mathison nodded. "The man next door, George, is not a Secret Service man. I\'d like to tell you all about it, but the time is too short. By telling him that I\'m going straight to the Waldorf you will be doing your Uncle Sam an extra service."

"I told him, Cap\'n."

"Good! Send a redcap in when the train stops. Good-by and good luck."

[Pg 191]

Mathison closed the door and locked it. The little red book he slipped into an inner pocket, the manila envelope he dropped into one of the kit-bags. What he did with the blue-print will be revealed at the proper moment. Then he sat down, his brain beginning to boil with questions. By and by he came to what he believed to be the solution of this miracle. The Yellow Typhoon was afraid. She had betrayed her companions because she saw immunity in the betrayal. She would never receive it from John Mathison, Bob Hallowell\'s friend! She, too, should pay. All the cards in his hand again, and he would play them on the basis that the phrase "blood and iron" was not pertinent to the Teuton only.

For what had been the primal impetus of this remarkable journey of ten thousand miles, of hiding continually behind steel walls, of refusing to take profit from the vast power at his service? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth! That he was a secret agent, carrying a tremendous undeveloped sea-offensive—which he still had by the hair—was to his mind, obsessed with a single idea, an affair of secondary importance.

[Pg 192]

Draw the hand strongly across the surface of the water. What happens? A wave, that follows irresistibly, fatefully, inescapably. This was, then, primarily a man-hunt, played backward, probably as peculiar a man-hunt as was ever conceived. The pursuers were in reality the pursued. Being a good psychologist, Mathison had simply put himself back of his enemies\' point of view. In their minds, who would be the logical messenger? John Mathison, transferred to European waters, the familiar friend of the inventor, the one man living who knew exactly what the invention in its entirety was. This established in their minds, there were ninety-nine chances in a hundred that they would follow him. And there was always the possibility that Paolo, the Spanish servant, had conveyed enough scraps of information to decide them.

Had he been only vaguely certain that they carried the blue-print, Mathison would have used his power and struck immediately after the sleep-fume attack the first night on shore. But, he had argued, supposing he struck and the print was not found? They would be liberated; forewarned, they would vanish. He hadn\'t credited them[Pg 193] with the stupidity of carrying so dangerous a thing as that blue-print. In their place he would have mailed it from San Francisco, with absolute certainty that it would reach the hands intended. There was no censorship over national mail. And now that the print was in his possession, he never could prove that it had actually been in theirs.

For the real point was to secure evidence, of which to date he had not an iota, not such as would pass muster in any court outside of Germany. To have the blond man and his companions arrested as matters now stood would be a waste of time. So his whole plan was to lure them to a point where the hand of the law could touch and hold. An overt act, culpable legally. And The Yellow Typhoon herself had restored the means.

There was still one puzzle—the woman\'s lack of curiosity. She had not opened the envelope. Had she declared to the blond man that she had not found it? It would not be stating it strong enough to say that she was the most baffling woman he had ever met; he had never read of one her match.

[Pg 194]

At length Mathison and redcap swung along with the crowd mak............