<h3> A SLIP OF PAPER </h3>
<p> </p>
<p>When the light of returning consciousness
finally pierced the black
lethargy that enshrouded him, Mr.
Grimm's mind was a chaos of vagrant, absurd
fantasies; then slowly, slowly, realization struggled
back to its own, and he came to know
things. First was the knowledge that he was
lying flat on his back, on a couch, it seemed;
then, that he was in the dark—an utter, abject
darkness. And finally came an overwhelming
sense of silence.</p>
<p>For a while he lay motionless, with not even
the movement of an eye-lash to indicate consciousness,
wrapped in a delicious languor.
Gradually this passed and the feeble flutter of
his heart grew into a steady, rhythmic beat.
The keen brain was awakening; he was beginning
to remember. What had happened? He
knew only that in some manner a drug had been
administered to him, a bitter dose tasting of
opium; that speechlessly, he had fought against
it, that he had risen from the table in the restaurant,
and that he had fallen. All the rest
was blank.</p>
<p>With eyes still closed, and nerveless hands
inert at his sides he listened, the while he turned
the situation over in speculative mood. The
waiter had administered the drug, of course,
unless—unless it had been the courteous stranger
who had replaced the newspaper on the
table! That thought opened new fields of conjecture.
Mr. Grimm had no recollection of ever
having seen him before; and he had paid only
the enforced attention of politeness to him. And
why had the drug been administered? Vaguely,
incoherently, Mr. Grimm imagined that in some
way it had to do with the great international
plot of war in which Miss Thorne was so delicate
and vital an instrument.</p>
<p>Where was he? Conjecture stopped there.
Evidently he was where the courteous gentleman
in the restaurant wanted him to be. A
prisoner? Probably. In danger? Long, careful
attention to detail work in the Secret Service
had convinced Mr. Grimm that he was always in
danger. That was one reason—and the best—why
he had lain motionless, without so much as
lifting a finger, since that first glimmer of consciousness
had entered his brain. He was probably
under scrutiny, even in the darkness, and
for the present it was desirable to accommodate
any chance watcher by remaining apparently unconscious.</p>
<p>And so for a long time he lay, listening. Was
there another person in the room? Mr. Grimm's
ears were keenly alive for the inadvertent shuffling
of a foot; or the sound of breathing.
Nothing. Even the night roar of the city was
missing; the silence was oppressive. At last he
opened his eyes. A pall of gloom encompassed
him—a pall without one rift of light. His
fingers, moving slowly, explored the limits of
the couch whereon he lay.</p>
<p>Confident, at last, that wherever he was, he was
unwatched, Mr. Grimm was on the point of concluding
that further inaction was useless, when
his straining ears caught the faint grating of
metal against metal—perhaps the insertion of a
key in the lock. His hands grew still; his eyes
closed. And after a moment a door creaked
slightly on its hinges, and a breath of cool air
informed Mr. Grimm that that open door, wherever
it was, led to the outside, and freedom.</p>
<p>There was another faint creaking as the door
was shut. Mr. Grimm's nerveless hands closed
involuntarily, and his lips were set together
tightly. Was it to be a knife thrust in the
dark? If not—then what? He expected the
flare of a match; instead there was a soft tread,
and the rustle of skirts. A woman! Mr.
Grimm's caution was all but forgotten in his
surprise. As the steps drew nearer his clenched
fingers loosened; he waited.</p>
<p>Two hands stretched forward in the dark,
touched him simultaneously—one on the face,
one on the breast. A singular thrill shot
through him, but there was not the flicker of an
eye or the twitching of a finger. The woman—it
<i>was</i> a woman—seemed now to be bending over
him, then he heard her drop on her knees beside
him, and she pressed an inquiring ear to his left
side. It was the heart test.</p>
<p>"Thank God!" she breathed softly.</p>
<p>It was only by a masterful effort that Mr.
Grimm held himself limp and inert, for a
strange fragrance was enveloping him—a fragrance
he well knew.</p>
<p>The hands were fumbling at his breast again,
and there was the sharp crackle of paper. At
first he didn't understand, then he knew that the
woman had pinned a paper to the lapel of his
coat. Finally she straightened up, and took
two steps away from him, after which came a
pause. His keenly attuned ears caught her faint
breathing, then the rustle of her skirts as she
turned back. She was leaning over him again—her
lips touched his forehead, barely; again
there was a quick rustling of skirts, the door
creaked, and—silence, deep, oppressive, overwhelming
silence.</p>
<p>Isabel! Was he dreaming? And then he
ceased wondering and fell to remembering her
kiss—light as air—and the softly spoken
"Thank God!" She did care, then! She <i>had</i>
understood, that day!</p>
<p>The kiss of a woman beloved is a splendid
heart tonic. Mr. Grimm straightened up suddenly
on the couch, himself again. He touched
the slip of paper which she had pinned to his
coat to make sure it was not all a dream, after
which he recalled the fact that while he had
heard the door creak before she went out he had
not heard it creak afterward. Therefore, the
door was open. She had left it open. Purposely?
That was beside the question at the
moment.</p>
<p>And why—how—was she in Washington?
Pondering that question, Mr. Grimm's excellent
teeth clicked sharply together and he rose. He
knew the answer. The compact was to be signed—the
alliance which would array the civilized
world in arms. He had failed to block that, as
he thought. If Miss Thorne had returned, then
Prince Benedetto d'Abruzzi, who held absolute
power to sign the compact for Italy, France and
Spain, had also returned.</p>
<p>Stealthily, feeling his way as he went, Mr.
Grimm moved toward the door leading to freedom,
guided by the fresh draft of air. He
reached the door—it was standing open—and a
moment later stepped out into the star-lit night.
It was open country here, with a thread of white
road just ahead, and farther along a fringe of
shrubbery. Mr. Grimm reached the road. Far
down it, a pin point in the night, a light flickered
through interlacing branches. The tail
lamp of an automobile, of course!</p>
<p>Mr. Grimm left the road and skirted a sparse
hedge in the direction of the light. After a
moment he heard the engine of an automobile,
and saw a woman—barely discernible—step into
the car. As it started forward he staked everything
on one bold move, and won, his reward being
a narrow sitting space in the rear of the
car, hidden from its occupants by the tonneau.
One mile, two miles, three miles they charged
through the night, and still he clung on. At
last there came relief.</p>
<p>"That's the place, where the lights are—just
ahead."</p>
<p>There was no mistaking that voice raised
above the clamor of the engine. The car slackened
speed, and Mr. Grimm dropped off and
darted behind some convenient bushes. And the
first thing he did there was to light a match,
and read what was written on the slip of paper
pinned to his coat. It was, simply:</p>
<blockquote><p>"My Dear Mr. Grimm:</p>
<p>"By the time you read this the compact will
have been signed, and your efforts to prevent it,
splendid as they were, futile. It is a tribute to
you that it was unanimously agreed that you
must be accounted for at the time of the signing,
hence the drugging in the restaurant; it
was only an act of kindness that I should come
here to see that all was well with you, and leave
the door open behind me.</p>
<p>"Believe me when I say that you are one man
in whom I have never been disappointed. Accept
this as my farewell, for now I assume again
the name and position rightfully mine. And
know, too, that I shall always cherish the belief
that you will remember me as</p>
<p>"Your friend,</p>
<p>"ISABEL THORNE.</p>
<p>"P. S. The prince and I left the steamer at
Montauk Point, on a tug-boat."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mr. Grimm kissed the note twice, then
burned it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<SPAN name="CH22"><!-- CHAPTER 22 --></SPAN>
<h3> XXII </h3>
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