staring at the name of the daughter of the millionaire banker,
John Brixton.

"She came to tell me that her father is in a virtual state of
siege, as it were, up there in his own house," explained Kennedy
in an undertone, "so much so that, apparently, she is the only
person he felt he dared trust with a message to summon me.
Practically everything he says or does is spied on; he can't even
telephone without what he says being known."

"Siege?" I repeated incredulously. "Impossible. Why, only this
morning I was reading about his negotiations with a foreign
syndicate of bankers from southeastern Europe for a ten-million-
dollar loan to relieve the money stringency there. Surely there
must be some mistake in all this. In fact, as I recall it, one of
the foreign bankers who is trying to interest him is that Count
Wachtmann who, everybody says, is engaged to Miss Brixton, and is
staying at the house at Woodrock. Craig, are you sure nobody is
hoaxing you?"

"Read that," he replied laconically, handing me a piece of thin
letter-paper such as is often used for foreign correspondence.
"Such letters have been coming to Mr. Brixton, I understand, every
day."

The letter was in a cramped foreign scrawl:

JOHN BRIXTON, Woodrock, New York.

American dollars must not endanger the peace of Europe. Be