you up."

"I am very glad indeed to see you, Captain Rotherby," Lamartine
said. "Something is happening in connection with this person which I
am afraid may lead to very serious trouble. I know now more than I did
when I hung around you and Miss Delora at Charing Cross Station, and
in the course of the day I hope to know more."

"I should have washed my hands of the whole affair," I told him,
"before now, but from the fact that I have received a cable from my
brother, who is in Rio, concerning these very people. He had first of
all, in a letter, asked me to be civil and to look them up. His cable
begged me, on behalf of an elder brother out there, to look after
Delora, find out what he was doing, and report. I gathered that he was
over here on some special mission as to the progress of which he
should have made reports to his brother in Brazil. He has not done so,
nor has he used the private code agreed upon between those two."

"This is very interesting," Lamartine said,--"very interesting
indeed!"

"I came to you," I said, "because, since the receipt of this cable, I
have convinced myself that Delora is engaged in some sort of
underground work the crisis of which must be very close at hand. I
found him last night in a miserable, deserted sort of building down
near the river in Bermondsey. He offered me ten thousand pounds not to
reply to his brother's cable, I think that he would have done his best
to have detained me there but for the fact that I had taken
precautions before I started."

"Have you any idea," Lamartine asked, "what the nature of this
underground business is?"

"I cannot imagine," I answered. "In some way it seems to me that it is
connected with the Chinese ambassador, because I have seen them
several times together. That, however, is only surmise. I can give
you one more piece of information," I added, "and that is that the
Chinese ambassador and Delora have recently visited Newcastle."

Lamartine smiled.

"I know everything except one thing," he said, "and that we shall both
of us know before the day is out. Our friend Delora has played a great
game. Even now I cannot tell you whether he has played to win or to
lose. Since you have been so kind as to look me up, Captain
Rotherby," he went on, "let us spend a little time together. Do me,
for instance, the honor to lunch with me at the Milan at one o'clock."

"With Louis?" I asked grimly.

"I do not think that Louis will hurt us," Lamarti