“You see, Mrs. Frobisher,” he said, “I rather jibbed the toil last night. Camille—er—Miss Navarre, has been working like a pack-mule for weeks past. Tends to neglect her fodder. So I asked her to step out for a plate of diet and a bottle of vintage “
“That was so like you. Dr. Craig.”
“Yes—I’m like that. We sort of banished dull care for an hour or two, and as a matter of fact, carried on pretty late. The chief is anxious about the job. He has more or less given me a deadline. I’m only making up for lost time. And so, please excuse me. Sound the trumpets, beat the drum when cocktails are served.”
He grinned boyishly and went upstairs. Stella went to look for Camille. She had discovered, in this young product of the Old World, something that the New World had been unable to give her. Stella Frobisher was often desperately lonely. She had never loved her husband passionately. Passion had passed her by.
In the study, Michael Frobisher had been talking on the phone. He had just hung up when Stein came in.
“Listen,” he said. “What’s this man, Sam, doing here?”
Stein’s heavy features registered nothing.
“I don’t know.”
“Talk to him. Find out. I trust nobody. 1 never employed that moron. Somebody has split us wide open. It isn’t just a leak. Somebody was in the Huston Building last night that had no right to be there. This man was supposed to be in Philadelphia. Who knows he was in Philadelphia? Check him up. Stein. It’s vital.”
“I can try to do. But his talk is so foolish I cannot believe he means it. He walks into my room, just now, and asks if I happen to have an old razor blade.”
“What for?”
“He says, to scrape his pipe bowl.”
Michael Frobisher glared ferociously.
“Ask him to have a drink. Give him plenty. Then talk to him.”
“I can try it.”
“Go and try it.”
Stein stolidly departed on this errand. There were those who could have warned him that it was a useless one.
Upstairs, in his room, Morris Craig had taken from his bag ink, pencils, brushes, and all the other implements of a craftsman’s craft. He had borrowed a large blotting-pad from the library to do service in lieu of a drawing board.
Stella and Camille had gone out into the garden.
The sim was shining.
And over this seemingly peaceful scene there hung a menace, an invisible cloud. The fate of nations was suspended on a hair above their heads. Of all those in Falling Waters that morning, probably Michael Frobisher was the most deeply disturbed. He paced up and down the restricted floor space of his study, black brows drawn together over a deep wrinkle, his eyes haunted.
When Stein came in without knocking, Frobisher jumped around like a stag at bay. He collected himself.
“Well—what now?”
Stein, expressionless, offered a card on a salver. He spoke tonelessly.
“Sir Denis Nay land Smith is here.”
Chapter XVII
“I can tell you, broadly, what happened last night,” said Nayland Smith. “It was an attempt to steal the final plans assumed to be locked in Craig’s safe.”
“I guessed as much,” Michael Frobisher replied.
Under drawn brows, he was studying the restless figure pacing to and fro in his study, fouling the air with fumes from a briar pipe which, apparently, Smith had neglected to clean since the day he bought it. Frobisher secretly resented this appropriation of his own parade ground, but recognized that he was powerless to do anything about it.
“The safe was opened.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Quite!” Smith rapped, glancing aside at Frobisher. “It was the work of an expert. Dr. Fu Manchu employs none but experts.”
“Dr. Fu Manchu! Then it wasn’t—”
Smith pulled up right in front of Frobisher, as he sat there behind his desk.
“Well—go on. Whom did you suspect?”
Frobisher twisted a half-smoked cigar between his lips.
“Come to think,1 don’t know.”
“But you do know that when a project with such vast implications nears maturity, big interests become involved. Agents of several governments are watching every move in your dangerous game. And there’s another agent who represents no government, but who acts for a powerful and well organized group.”
“Are you talking about Vickers?” Frobisher growled.
“No. Absurd! This isn’t a commercial group. It’s an organization controlled by Dr. Fu Manchu. In all probability, Dr Fu Manchu was in Craig’s office last night.”
“But—”
“The only other possibility is that the attempt was made by a Soviet spy. Have you reason to suspect any member of your staff?”
“I doubt that any Russian has access to the office.”
“Why a Russian?” Nayland Smith asked. “Men of influence and good standing in other countries have worked for Communism. It offers glittering prizes. Why not a citizen of the United States?”
Frobisher watched him covertly. “True enough.”
“Put me clear on one point. Because a false move, now, might be fatal. You have employed no private investigator?”
“No, sir. Don’t trust my affairs to strangers.”
“Where are Craig’s original plans?”
Michael Frobisher glanced up uneasily.
“In my New York bank.”
In this, Michael Frobisher was slightly misinformed. His wife, presenting an order typed on Huston Electric notepaper and apparently signed by her husband, had withdrawn the plans two days before, on her way from an appointment with Professor Hoffmeyer.
“Complete blueprints—where?”
“Right here in the house.”
“Were they in the safe that was opened the other night?”
“No, sir—they were not.”
“Whoever inspected the plant in the laboratory would be a trained observer. Would it, in your opinion, be possible to reconstruct the equipment after such an examination?”
Michael Frobisher frowned darkly.
“I want you to know that I’m not a physicist,” he answered. “I’m not even an engineer. I’m a man of business. But in my opinion, no—it wouldn’t. He would have had to dismantle it. Craig and Shaw report it hadn’t been touched. Then, without the transmuter, that plant is plain dynamite.”
Nayland Smith crossed and stared out at the woods beyond the window.
“I understand that this instrument—whatever it may be—is already under construction. Only certain valves are lacking. Craig will probably complete his work today. Mr. Frobisher”—he turned, and his glance was hard—”your estate is a lonely one.”
Frobisher’s uneasiness grew. He stood up.
“You think I shouldn’t have had Craig out here, with that work?”
“I think,” said Smith, “that whilst it would be fairly easy to protect the Huston laboratory, now that we know what we’re up against, this house surrounded by sixty acres, largely woodland, is a colt of a different color. By tonight, there will be inflammable material here. Do you realize that if Fu Manchu—or the Kremlin— first sets up a full-scale Craig plant, Fu Manchu—or the Kremlin— will be master of the world?”
“You’re sure, dead sure, that they’re both out to get it?”
Frobisher’s voice was more than usually hoarse.
“I have said so. One of the two has a flying start. I want to see your radar alarm system and I want to inspect your armory. I’m returning to New York. Two inquiries should have given results. One leading to the hideout of Dr. Fu Manchu, the other to the identity of the Soviet agent.”
Camille and Stella Frobisher came in from the garden.
“You know,” Stella was saying, “I believe we have discovered something.”
“All we seem to have discovered,” Camille replied, “is that there are strange gaps in your memory, and strange gaps in mine. The trouble in your case seems to have begun after you consulted Professor Hoffmeyer about your nerves.”