The Pawns Count Part 12

"Upon that question I have not altogether made up my mind," Pamela confessed.

"Then there is room there for a discussion," Mr. Fischer pointed out eagerly. "I should like to put my views before you on this matter."

"And I should love to hear them," Pamela replied, "but I feel just now as though we had talked enough politics. Do you know that I came up on deck in a state of great agitation?"

"Submarine alarms from the stewardess?" Mr. Fischer suggested.

"I am not afraid of submarines, but I have a most profound dislike for thieves," Pamela declared.

"You have not had anything stolen?" he asked quickly.

"I have not," Pamela replied, "but the only reason seems to be that I have nothing worth stealing. When I got back from luncheon this afternoon I found that my stateroom had been systematically searched."

She turned her head a little lazily and looked at her neighbour. His expression was entirely sympathetic.

"Your jewellery?"

"Deposited with the purser."

"I congratulate you," he said.

"Nothing has been stolen," she observed, "but one hates the feeling of insecurity, all the same. Both my steward and stewardess are old friends. It must have been a very clever person who found his way into my room."

"A very clever person," Mr. Fischer objected, "would have known that you had deposited your jewels with the purser."

"If it was my jewels of which they were in search," Pamela murmured.

"By the bye, do you remember all that fuss about the disappearance of a young soldier that morning at Henry's?"

Fischer nodded.

"I heard something about it," he confessed. "They were talking about it at dinner-time."

"I had an idea that you might be interested," Pamela went on. "He was rather a foolish young man. He came into the restaurant telling every one at the top of his voice that he had made a great discovery! Even in London, which is, I should think, the most prosaic city in the world, there must be people who are on the lookout to pick up war secrets."

"Even in London, as you remark," Fischer a.s.sented.

"You didn't hear the end of the affair, I suppose?" she asked him.

The steward had arrived with afternoon tea. Fischer threw into the sea the cigar which he had been smoking.

"I do not think," he said, "that the end has been reached yet."

Pamela sighed.

"Les oreilles ennemies!" she quoted. "I suppose one has to be careful everywhere."

CHAPTER VIII

It was one evening towards the end of the voyage, and about an hour after dinner. A huge form loomed out of the darkness, continuing its steady promenade along the unlit portion of the deck. Pamela, moved by some caprice, abandoned her caution of the last few days and called out.

"Mr. Fischer!"

He stopped short. The sparks flew from the red end of his cigar, which he tossed into the sea. He hastened towards her.

"Miss Van Teyl?" he replied, a little hesitatingly.

"How clever of you to know my voice!" she observed. "I am in the humour to talk. Will you sit down, please?"

Mr. Fischer humbly drew a chair to her side.

"I had an idea," he said, "that you had been avoiding me the last two or three days."

"I have," she admitted.

"Have I offended you, then?"

"Scarcely that," she replied, "only, you see, it seemed waste of time to talk to you with the foils on, and a little dangerous, perhaps, to talk to you with them off."

His face reflected his admiration.

"Miss Van Teyl," he declared, "you are quite a wonderful person. I have never believed very much in women before. Perhaps that is the reason why I have never married."

"Dear me, are you a woman-hater?" she asked.

He looked at her steadfastly.

"I have made use of women as playthings," he confessed. "Until I met you I never thought of them as companions, as partners."

She laughed at him through the darkness, and at the sound of her laugh his eyes glowed.

"Really, I am very much flattered," she said. "You give me credit for intelligence, then?"

"I give you credit for every gift a woman should have," he answered enthusiastically. "I recognise in you the woman I have sometimes dreamed of."

Again she laughed.

"Don't tell me, Mr. Fischer," she protested, "that ever in your practical life you have spent a single moment in dreams?"

"I have spent many," he a.s.sured her, "but they have all been since I knew you."

Pamela sighed.

"I have never been through a voyage," she observed, "without a love affair. Still, I never suspected you, Mr. Fischer."

"You suspected me, perhaps, of other things."