This country
swarms with foreign secret-service men. What they are planning against
us, Heaven knows!"
"Heaven and Naida Karetsky," Chalmers intervened softly.
"You believe that she is our enemy?" Nigel asked, with a look of trouble
in his eyes.
"She is Immelan's friend," Chalmers reminded him.
"There was a man named Atcheson," Jesson began quietly--
Nigel nodded.
"He was one of the men my uncle sent out. The first one was stabbed in
Petrograd. Jim Atcheson was poisoned and died in Berlin."
"There was rather a scare in a certain quarter about Atcheson," Jesson
observed. "He was supposed to have got a report through to the late Lord
Dorminster."
"He got it through all right," Nigel replied. "My uncle was busy
decoding it, seated in this room, at that table, when he died."
"His death was very sudden," Jesson ventured.
"I have not the faintest doubt but that he was murdered," Nigel
declared. "The document upon which he was working disappeared entirely
except for one sheet."
"You have that one sheet?" Jesson asked eagerly.
Nigel produced it from his pocketbook, smoothed it cut, and laid it upon
the table.
"There are two things worth noticing here," he pointed out. "The first
is that the actual name of a town in Russia is given, and a telephone
number in London. Kroten I have looked up on the map. It seems to be an
unimportant place in a very desolate region. The telephone number is
Oscar Immelan's.
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