“I’m sorry I sha’n’t be able to be with you until late to-night,” he said, as he paused at his office door.  “I’m in the medical corps of the Guard and I promised to lecture to-night on gunshot wounds.  Some of my material got smashed up, but I have my lantern slides, anyhow.  I’ll try to see you all later, though.”

Was that a clever attempt at confession and avoidance on his part?  I wondered.  But, then, I reflected he could not possibly know that we knew he had anaerobic microbes and spores in his possession.  I had cleared up nothing and I hastened to call up the shipyard, sure that the line could not be busy still.

Whatever it was that was the matter, central seemed unable to get me my number.  Instead, I found myself cut right into a conversation that did not concern me, evidently the fault of the hotel switchboard operator.  I was about to protest when the words I heard stopped me in surprise.  A man and a woman were talking, though I could not recognize the voices and no names were used.

“I tell you I won’t be a party to that launching scheme,” I heard the man’s voice.  “I wash my hands of it.  I told you that all along.”

“Then you’re going to desert us?” came back the woman’s voice, rather tartly.  “It’s for that girl.  Well, you’ll regret it.  I’ll turn the whole organization on you—­I will—­you—­you—­” The voices trailed off, and, try as I could to get the operator to find out who it was, I could not.

Who was it?  What did it mean?

Kennedy had finished with the manicure some time before and was waiting for me impatiently.

“I haven’t been able to get Marlowe,” I hastened, “but I’ve had an earful.”  He listened keenly as I told him what I had heard, adding also the account of my encounter with Gavira.

“It’s just as I thought—­I’ll wager,” he muttered, excitedly, under his breath, taking a hurried turn down the corridor, his face deeply wrinkled.

“Well!  Anything new?  I expected to hear from you, but haven’t,” boomed the deep voice of Marlowe, who had just come in from an entrance in another direction from that which we were pacing.  “No clue yet to my crank?”

Without a word, Kennedy drew Marlowe aside into a little deserted alcove.  Marlowe followed, puzzled at the air of mystery.

Alone, Craig leaned over toward him.  “It’s no crank,” he whispered, in a low tone.  “Marlowe, I am convinced that there is a concerted effort to destroy your plans for American commerce building.  There isn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that it is more serious than you think—­perhaps a powerful group of European steamship men opposed to you.  It is economic war!  You know they have threatened it at meetings reported in the press all along.  Well, it’s here!”

Half doubting, half convinced, Marlowe drew back.  One after another he shot a rapid fire of questions.  Who, then, was their agent who had fired the shot?  Who was it who had deserted, as I had heard over the wire?  Above all, what was it they had planned for the launching?  The deeper he got the more the beads of perspiration came out on his sunburnt forehead.  The launching was only eighteen hours off, too, and ten of them were darkness.  What could be done?