"Garrett," he asked, "Tom told me you sent some of the Yankee Doodle Glory ore samples to New York, to a friend of yours who has a great chemical laboratory?"
"I did. There was that unknown metal which I was unable to separate."
"When did you send it?"
"On the seventh."
"And it reached New York on the eleventh. . ."
"Or the twelfth, Wedekind.”
"Let's call it the twelfth." Wedekind cupped his chin in his hands, He was thinking deeply. "Today is the fifteenth," he went on. "Three days' difference. What's the name of your New York friend?"
"The chemist? Oh, Sturizel. Conrad Sturtzel."
"A German?"
"Yes, We studied together in Freiburg where I took a post-graduate course. First-rate fellow. Very clever. The right sort to find out all about that unknown ingredient." He rose. "Sorry I have to leave you, gentlemen. And—Tom! Take that half-million offer! By all means!"
"Don't you do anything of the sort!" Wedekind said when Garrett had disappeared.
"Why not?" Tom was frankly astonished.
"Because. . . I'll be frank with you. Because Sturtzel is a German, and because that very respectable and very honest firm of Johannes Hirschfeld &Co.. . ."
"You think they'd welsh?"
"No. They'd pay you spot cash in good, minted gold coin of the realm. It’s because"— instinctively he lowered his voice—"they are hand in glove with the Deutsche Bank, with the German Governent.. . ."
