offence, no offence,” grumbled the fat man, “didn’t think before I spoke; worried, worried, worried!” He waggled his fat hand to and fro as though illustrating the process of perturbation.
“As to that,” said Silinski, with a magnificent sweep of hand, “we agree to forget; but you lost money—”
“Lost money!” the fat man glared, “lost more than money, important documents, a precioso — precious, savvy — letter from a feller in the city, no possible value except to owner, see?”
“Let us go on with our dinner,” said Baggin roughly; “you talk too much, Louis.”
“Letters have been lost, seemingly, irredeemably lost,” persisted Silinski, who was not at all anxious to change the subject, “yet, by such agencies as I have at present in my mind, have been restored to their grateful and generous owners.”
“Detectives, eh?” Meyers’ glare was now ferocious. “Spying, pryin’, lyin’ detectives? No! by—”
Baggin looked across at the girl in patient despair.
“I was not thinking of detectives — by the way, Burgos seems filled with these gentlemen,” Silinski went on. “I was thinking of a genius who makes this country his home. His name” — Silinski’s voice was emphatic as he created from his mind the wonderful investigator— “his name is Senor don Sylvester de Gracia, and he is a personal friend of mine.”
“Oh! let the thing go,” interrupted Baggin impatiently. “You’ve lost it, and there’s an end to it; the thief will be satisfied with the money and tear the letter up.”
“Unless,” mused Silinski, “the thief is arrested by the police, and the letter is found upon him. Then the authorities might send for Senor T.B. Smith — eh?”
Meyers’ face went ashen, and his thick lips began to quiver like a child on the point of crying.
“Smith? T.B. Smith? Commissioner, Scotland Yard! Not here, eh? Damn it, he’s not here!”
“I passed him in the Plaza Mayos less than an hour ago; a gentleman very easily amused.”
“Smith!” Meyers’ shaking hand poured out a glass of amber wine. “Bah! mistaken!”
“I know him slightly,” said Silinski modestly (it was T.B. Smith who had marked him for deportation under the Undesirable Aliens Act); “I never forget a face.”
The fat man pushed back his chair, wiping his big mouth clumsily with a serviette.
“Then it’s up,” he said. “He’s here for something; my name’s Mud in the city—”
“Be quiet!” Baggin turned with a snarl upon his companion. “Look here,” he said, facing Silinski, “my friend is not quite himself — I’ll take him up to my room for a minute or so: will you wait here? You might be of service to us.”
Without waiting for an answer the two men left the room, Baggin with one hand clenched on the fat man’s arm.
When they had gone Silinski turned to his sister.
“I hope you haven’t scared them,” she said in German.
“I think not,” said her amiable relative, and the two exchanged confidences.
“What have they done?” she asked.
“Nothing — as yet,” he said diplomatically.
“You have this letter?” she asked, but Silinski shook his head.
“If I had,” he said, “I could tell you all you want to know. Unfortunately I am in the dark.”
“And the money?”
“I know no more about the money than you,” he replied, with charming frankness. “Who are they?”
She laughed, showing two straight, white rows of teeth, and there was genuine amusement in her big grey eyes. “You have the money, of course, and the letter — you must tell me, Gregory. I must know where I am with them; it is due to me.”
“As to the money,” said Silinski, without shame, “it is some fifty thousand francs; one might live for a year in luxury upon fifty thousand francs. As for the letter — why, that is an annuity forever.”
He leaned over the table, and as he looked his eyes were lowered to the cloth, like a man ransacking his memory for elusive facts.
“These men are part of an epidemic — a wave of financial instability is rushing across the world — no, I will put it inimitably: There are props of rotten finance; sometimes one pole snaps and the structure trembles,’ sometimes two snap and the structure lurches, but does not fall, for there is strength in union, and it is more difficult to break a bundle of worm-eaten sticks than one honest stave. But suppose all the props are withdrawn at once — what happens? Ph-tt! And suppose the weaker props say—’ The big fellow is going — it is time for us to move’?”
Catherine listened patiently.
“I would rather you spoke less like a priest, in parables,” she said.
“Naturally,” said Silinski, with an easy inclination of his head, as though this were the very comment he expected, “yet I must deal in parables. Amongst your accomplishments, do you speak English?”
“A little.” Catherine shrugged her shoulders carelessly. “I can say ‘my dear’ and ‘I like you very much’.”
“Which hardly fulfils all commercial requirements,” said Silinski thoughtfully. “I will translate to you the interesting letter, which may be condensed into one comprehensive sentence towards the end—’When you are ready say “jump”’—”
Here Baggin appeared in the doorway, and beckoned to the polite Silinski, and that worthy made his way through the crowded room.
“Can you get that letter?” asked Baggin, without any preliminary, “or were you only joshing?”
“I can not only get the letter, but I have the letter,” said the other calmly, and Baggin’s lids narrowed. “Further, your plans are very foolish,” the Pole went on smoothly, “because you have no plans. Spain will not hold nine defaulting bucket-shop keepers — that is the idiom, is it not? — unless your retirement is organized with considerably more skill than you have up to this moment displayed.”
The American said nothing.
“I have a plan, a great plan,” said Silinski, and he drew himself erect in the pride of his authorship; “but you must take me into its working.”
“You are a damned villain,” said Baggin, “a blackmailer ‘ 9
Silinski’s brows darkened.
“Villain, yes,” he said; “blackmailer, no — I am a genius — that is all.”
III. Some Disappearances
