back to the reardoorway. By great good luck it was still open. He stole in, just makingit as the truck driver, staggering under a load of empty crates, came upthe cellar stairs and went out to his truck.
Thorn drew a deep breath. He was inside the Arvanian Embassy. The placewas a three-storied stone trap in which, if the slightest slip revealedhim to its tenants, he would surely meet his death. But, anyway, he wasinside! And the threatening Ziegler plans waited somewhere near at handfor him to find and take!
Even had Thorn not known in advance that trouble was brewing, he couldhave surmised that something sinister was being hatched in the ArvanianEmbassy. For, in this big sunny kitchen five men lounged about inaddition to the white-coated chef and his beardless stripling of anassistant. And each of the five had a holster strapped openly over hiscoat with the butt of an automatic protruding in plain sight.
Thorn looked about. Across from the great range, beside which he wasstanding and holding his breath for fear some one of the seven menshould become aware of his presence, was the door leading to the frontpart of the house. He started toward that door, walking on tiptoe. Ashudder crept up his spine as he tiptoed across the floor directly infront of the armed guards who would have shot him down withoutcompunction could they have seen him. He was not yet used to hisinvisibility; knowing himself to be substantial, feeling his feetdescend solidly on the floor, he still could hardly credit the fact thathuman eyes could not observe him.
* * * * *
He got to the door. He put out his hand to open it, then realized justin time that he could not do that. A door stealthily opening and closingagain, with no apparent hand to manipulate it? Such a spectacle wouldstart a riot!
In a frenzy of impatience, he stood beside the door, waiting tillsomeone else should swing it open. And in a moment it chanced that thestripling assistant chef came toward him with a tray. The boy pushed theswinging door with his foot, and walked into the butler's pantry. Afterhim, treading almost on the lad's heels, came Thorn.
The boy sat the tray down, and turned to reach into an upper shelf. Thespace in the pantry was constricted, and he turned abruptly. The resultwas that he suddenly drew back as though a hot iron had seared him, andwent white as chalk. Then he dashed back into the kitchen.
"A hand!" Thorn heard him gibbering in Arvanian. "A hand! I touched itwith mine! Something horrible is in there!"
With his heart pounding in his throat, Thorn leaned close to theswing-door to hear what happened next. Would there be a rush for thebutler's pantry? An investigation? He eyed the farther door--the diningroom door. But he dared not flee through that save as a last resort. Inthe dining room sounded voices; and again the sight of a door openingand closing of itself would lead to uproar.
"A hand?" he heard one of the guards say in the kitchen. "An unseenhand? Thou art empty in the head, young Gova."
There followed some jeering sentences in colloquial Arvanian that weretoo idiomatic for Thorn's knowledge of the language to let himunderstand. A general guffaw came from the rest; and, as no move wasmade toward the pantry, Thorn decided he was saved for another fewmoments.
Gasping, he raised his hand to wipe the perspiration off his forehead,then realized there was no perspiration there. His film-clogged porescould exude nothing; he had only the sensation of perspiring.
* * * * *
Now the problem was to get through the next door. Thoughtfully, Thorngazed at it. He saw that this, too, was a swing-door. Further, he sawthat now and then it creaked open a few inches, and swung sluggishlyback. Beyond it somewhere a window was open, and spasmodic gusts movedthe swinging slab of wood.
The next time the door moved with the wind, Thorn caught it andaugmented the movement a bit. Twice he did that, each time swinging itback a trifle further. Next time, he figured, he could open it enough toslide into the room.
Two glimpses he had had, with the openings of the door, into the roombeyond. These glimpses had showed him a great oval table on which wasset the debris of afternoon tea, and around which were grouped tense,eager men. Dark of hair and complexion were these men, with the arroganthawk noses and ruthless small eyes of the typical Arvanian. Several ofthem were garbed in military uniforms and armed with swords. They weretalking in tones too low for Thorn to distinguish words through the filmover his ears. He would have to get in there to hear them.
For the third time the wind pushed at the door. For the third time Thorncaught its edge and swung it--six inches, eight, almost enough to slipthrough....
"Shut thou the window!" crackled a voice suddenly. "Fool! What if someof these documents blew away?"
There was a slam, and the breeze was cut off. Thorn quickly let go ofthe door, and watched it fall back in place again.
He was cursing his luck when he heard the same commanding voice say:"Kori, see if there be one who listens in the butler's pantry. It seemedthe door opened wider than the wind would warrant."
There was the scrape of a chair. Then the door was abruptly thrust openand coldly alert eyes in a hostile, wary face, swept over the pantry.
"No one here, Excellency," said Kori; and he returned to his place atthe table.
* * * * *
But with him came another, unseen, to stand against the wall beside agreat mahogany buffet, and to listen and watch. Kori had, notunnaturally, held the door open while he glanced around the pantry. Andunder Kori's outstretched arm, so close as almost to brush against hisuniformed legs, had stolen Thorn.
"Then, gentlemen, it is all arranged?" said the man at the head of theoval table--a spare, elderly individual with bristling gray mustachiosand smoldering dark eyes. "The plans leave for Arvania to-morrow night,to arrive in our capital city in ten days. Then day and nightmanufacture of the Ziegler projectors--and declaration of war. Followingthat, this great city of Washington, and the even greater cities of NewYork and Chicago, and all, this fine land from Atlantic to Pacific,shall become an Arvanian possession to exploit as we like!"
There was an audible "Ah!" from the score of men around thetable--broken by a voice in the main double doorway of the dining room:"Gentlemen, your pardon, I am late."
Thorn looked at the speaker. He was a young fellow with an especiallyelaborate uniform and a face that appeared weak and dissipated in spiteof the arrogant Arvanian nose. Then a bark came to Thorn's ears--and acold feeling to the pit of Thorn's stomach. The newcomer had brought adog with him!
Even as he gazed apprehensively at the dog--a rangy wolfhound--the brutegrowled deep in its throat and stared at the corner by the buffet whereThorn was instinctively trying to make himself smaller.
The dog growled again, and stalked warily toward the buffet.
"Grego, down," said his master absently. Then, to the spare man at thehead of the table: "I have been next door, talking to the AmericanSecretary of War. A dull fellow. Convinced, is he, that Arvania harborsonly kind thoughts for this great stupid nation. They shall be utterlyunprepared for our attack--Grego! What ails the brute?"
* * * * *
The wolfhound had evaded several outstretched hands and got to thebuffet. There it crouched and cowered, fangs showing in a snarl, eyesreddening wickedly, while the growl rattled louder in its shaggy throat.
"Perhaps the heat has affected him," said one.
All were looking at the dog now, marveling at its odd behavior. But ofall the eyes that observed it a pair of unseen eyes watched with theutmost agitation.
Thorn stared, almost hypnotized, at the creature. A dog! What rottenluck! Men might be fooled by the masking invisibility, but there was nodeceiving a dog's keen nose!
The wolfhound started forward as though to leap, then settled back.Plainly it longed to spring. Equally plainly it was afraid of the beingthat so impossibly was revealed to its nostrils but not to its eyes.Meanwhile, one tearing sweep of blunt claws or sharp fangs--and a fatalrent would appear in Thorn's encasing shell!
r /> The dog snapped tentatively. Thorn flattened still harder against thewall, with discovery and death hovering very closely about him. Then thebeast's master intervened.
"Grego! Here, sir! A council room is no place, for thee, anyway. Here, Isay! So, then--"
He hastened to the dog and caught its collar. Twisting the leathercruelly, he dragged the protesting, snarling brute to the doors and slidthem shut with the wolfhound barking and growling on the outside."Someone put him in his kennel," he said through the panels. A scufflingin the hall told of the execution of the order. The council room becamequiet again, and Thorn leaned against the wall and closed his eyes foran instant.
"We were saying, Soyo," the leader addressed the dog's owner, "that theZiegler plans start for Arvania to-morrow night. All is arranged. Theseinnocent looking bits of paper"--he thumped a small packet of documentslying before