"So it would seem!" murmured the ambassador. The sternness had melted out of his face, leaving a whimsical tenderness.
"Sit down, my dear boy! Other people have been as hot in love as you before now--and as rashly headstrong." A shade passed over his features. "Come, let us get down to business. What is it you wish me to do--administer a love-potion to the young woman? Or restore the father to life?"
"I want you to investigate the case," Cord replied simply. "Or rather, give me the power to do so."
"There's Scotland Yard, you know," suggested his friend mildly.
"They could co-operate with us. In fact, that is what I should like to ask. That you send for Mr. T. B. Smith, who is already in charge of the business, and tell him that a certain strangeness in the circumstances has aroused your suspicions, and that you wish to sift the affair to the bottom. But since you cannot move openly, on account of your conspicuous position, you desire to join forces secretly, and to that end you offer a bonus of £500 to clear up the mystery--to prove, satisfactorily, that Grayson either is, or is not, dead."
"Five hundred pounds!" mused the ambassador. "You are in love!"
Van Ingen flushed at the thrust. "I am in earnest," he said simply.
The ambassador studied his finger-tips. "I might say," he observed gravely, "that such a course as you outline--minus the £500--had already occurred to me. Certain financial--er--adventures in which Grayson was engaged, with others, have come before my attention, and it appeared advisable to throw a searchlight upon the somewhat shadowy obscurity of his death. But my attitude in the investigation differs slightly from yours." His eyes, suddenly upraised, were slightly quizzical.
Van Ingen leaned forward breathlessly. He appeared to hang on his companion's words. "Go on! Go on, sir!" he urged.
The older man continued: "I do not ask, then, as you, where is Mr. Grayson? I ask, where is Mr. Grayson's money? The gentleman may be in heaven, or--ah!--elsewhere; presumably the latter. But, in either case, his money is not with him. Where is it, then? These, and several other interesting queries, I am waiting to put to Mr. Smith, who"--he took out his watch--"is due here in precisely ten minutes."