His voice sounded agreeably in his own ears; the gentle glow of a lignum-vitae wood fire smote his attenuated shins; he balanced his cards in one hand, a long cigar in the other, exhaled a satisfactory whiff of aromatic smoke, and smiled comfortably upon the table.
"Four hearts," he repeated affably. "Does anybody--"
The voice of Doom interrupted him: "Mr. Vaux, sir--"
The young man turned in his easy-chair and beheld behind him a club servant, all over silver buttons.
"The telephone, Mr. Vaux," continued that sepulchral voice.
"All right," said the young man. "Bill, will you take my cards?"--he laid his hand, face down, rose and left the pleasant warmth of the card-room with a premonitory shiver.
"Well?" he inquired, without cordiality, picking up the receiver.
"Mr. Vaux?" came a distinct voice which he did not recognise.
"Yes," he snapped, "who is it?"
"Miss Erith."
"Oh--er--surely--surely! GOOD-evening, Miss Erith!"
"Good-evening, Mr. Vaux. Are you, by any happy chance, quite free this evening?"
"Well--I'm rather busy--unless it is important--hum--hum!--in line of duty, you know--"
"You may judge. I'm going to try to secure that code-book to-night."
"Oh! Have you called in the--"
"No!"
"Haven't you communicated with--"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Because there's too much confusion already--too much petty jealousy and working at cross-purposes. I have been thinking over the entire problem. You yourself know how many people have escaped through jealous or over-zealous officers making premature arrests. We have six different secret-service agencies, each independent of the other and each responsible to its own independent chief, all operating for the Government in New York City. You know what these agencies are--the United States Secret Service, the Department of Justice Bureau of Investigation, the Army Intelligence Service, Naval Intelligence Service, Neutrality Squads of the Customs, and the Postal Inspection. Then there's the State Service and the police and several other services. And there is no proper co-ordination, no single head for all these agencies. The result is a ghastly confusion and shameful inefficiency.
"This affair which I am investigating is a delicate one, as you know. Any blundering might lose us the key to what may be a very dangerous conspiracy. So I prefer to operate entirely within the jurisdiction of our own Service--"
"What you propose to do is OUTSIDE of our province!" he interrupted.
"I'm not so sure. Are you?"