‘And do you actually believe that?’
‘Certainly!’
‘Then God help you for fools, if there are any more like you!’ Leonard rose to his feet. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you have been frank, and by your willingness to answer straightforwardly have saved us a certain amount of trouble, so I will not be too harsh with you. You will go back to Lahore under arrest, and will stand your trial, but I’ll make things easier for you than I would have done if you had not tried to be honest, and perhaps in the course of time, if you prove yourself loyal, you may even be allowed to re-open your establishment.’
The man’s eyes filled with tears, and he stammered his thanks. He was handed over to the policeman outside, who took him away to the police station. Then Leonard smiled at his two companions.
‘Do you realise,’ he said, ‘that it is nearly half past ten, and we haven’t had any breakfast yet? The doctor did not forbid Brien and me to eat, did he, Major?’
‘Not to my knowledge,’ replied Watkins, and led the way to the car.
‘Well, we’ve got the plans,’ said Leonard, as he settled himself in his seat. ‘But I shall not be satisfied until Levinsky and Dorin are under lock and key. Then we’ll go back to England, and try and grow some more hair, Billy.’
After they had made a very good breakfast, the doctor arrived on the scene, and entreated them to take things easily, at least for that day. At first Leonard refused, but at last consented to take just one day of rest.
‘After all,’ he said to Billy, when the worthy medical man had left, highly satisfied with his partial victory, and they were alone with the Commissioner, ‘one day won’t make very much difference now. We have the plans, and I have a feeling that Levinsky and Dorin will hang round until there is no longer any chance of their recovering them. So we may get the blighters yet. You are continuing your investigations of course, Watkins?’
‘Naturally! I shall go along to the office in a few minutes, and direct proceedings from there, unless you wish me to stay here.’
‘No; I’d rather you were on the spot! Ring us up if you want us, or have anything to tell us.’
‘Certainly I’ll ring you up if I have any information for you, Sir Leonard,’ replied the Commissioner, and rose from his chair; ‘but I am not going to want you. You promised to rest for today, and rest you must.’
Wallace smiled.
‘You and the doctor are nothing but bullies,’ he said. ‘However, we can do with a rest. Do you realise, Billy,’ he went on, ‘that we have only been in India for three days, and a bit?’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Billy. ‘It seems like months.’
‘It seems like a fairy tale,’ said Watkins, ‘when one considers what you have accomplished in that time.’
He presently took his leave, and the two friends were left alone. Long cane chairs were placed on the veranda for them, and for the rest of the day they rested there, alternately sleeping, smoking and talking, while Batty ministered to their wants like an old hen fussing over a brood of chicks. Forsyth and Hallows came to see them and spent some time in their company. They learnt that Green was progressing favourably, but would not be able to leave hospital for at least three weeks.
During the course of the morning a long telegram arrived from Colonel Sanders in which he informed them that the Mahseud, who had been captured in the house at Simla, had confessed to the murder of Major Elliott, that the address given him as the headquarters of the Russians in Simla had been raided, and three white men and a host of seditious literature taken, and that they had recaptured the other native who had escaped from Hartley.
‘That’s good reading,’ said Wallace with satisfaction. ‘Sanders has something to beam over now.’
‘It would take a lot to make him beam,’ muttered Billy. ‘He always looks and behaves as though he has had a broken love romance.’
‘Perhaps he has,’ smiled Leonard, ‘but I think it is more likely to be the Indian climate and curry.’
‘I wonder how he knew we were here.’
‘Easy enough to find out. He probably rang up Rainer at Lahore and got the information from him. Well, there’s one thing we’ve been very lucky in, and that is our dealings with the Indian police. It would be hard to find three more capable men than Sanders, Rainer and Watkins. If all deputy commissioners are on a par with those three, India is a very fortunate country.’
Billy nodded.
‘I like Rainer immensely,’ he said. ‘He is really a very charming man. By the way,’ he added, suddenly changing the conversation, ‘I wonder where the girls are now!’
‘Let me see, they left Marseilles on Saturday! Then they must be nearly at Port Said by now. It will take the yacht about eight days from there to Bombay, so we can expect them to arrive on Thursday week.’
‘I hope we are a bit more presentable when they arrive,’ said Billy. ‘As it is they will get rather a shock.’
‘I’m afraid they will. It won’t be nice to find two hairless husbands awaiting them, but it cannot be helped. And our burns will not be healed much by then either.’
The Commissioner returned at five o’clock and reported a very busy day. No trace of either Levinsky or Dorin had been found, but every precaution had been taken to prevent their getting away either by boat, train or car, if they had not already done so.
The three were discussing the possibility of recapturing the two spies, when Leonard looked keenly at Billy.
‘Do you think you feel fit enough to undertake a long journey?’ he asked.
‘Where to?’ asked Billy in surprise.
‘Delhi! I think that the sooner the plans are handed over to the Viceroy the better. I suggest, therefore, that, if you feel well enough to make the trip, you should leave here early in the morning with them.’
‘I shall be all right,’ replied Billy. ‘But why not both of us?’
‘Because I want to recapture Levinsky and Dorin, and I have an idea that they will hang about here for a time, so I won’t leave Karachi until all hope is gone. And, as I may want the aeroplane, I hope Watkins can arrange to let you have a couple of cars.’
‘Certainly,’ replied the Commissioner. ‘That will be easy enough.’
‘But why two cars?’ asked Billy.
‘I am not taking any further risks, so I am going to request Mr Commissioner to give you an escort of half a dozen policemen. Also I shall send Forsyth with you as an extra aide in case of trouble. How far is it from here to Delhi?’ he asked Watkins.
‘Seven hundred and fifty miles,’ replied the latter.
‘Is it a good road?’
‘Fair.’
‘Then by not overdoing things you should reach Delhi by Friday morning. I suppose there are decent hotels on the way where you can sleep and have your meals?’
‘I suggest that it would be safer if Major Brien had his meals at police depots, and also slept there,’ said the Commissioner. ‘I’ll send messages through to say he is coming, and make arrangements for him.’
‘A jolly good idea,’ said Wallace. ‘Then perhaps you will get to Delhi without mishap, Bill.’
‘Why not lock me up in a cell at night,’ said that worthy, ‘since you are so bent on putting me under police supervision?’
‘It would be wiser!’ replied his chief, and so seriously that Brien thought he meant it and started to protest, much to the amusement of Watkins. ‘I don’t think there is much risk of your being held up,’ went on Wallace. ‘You must get away without our friends Levinsky and Dorin knowing anything about it. And as they probably imagine we are too ill to do anything just yet, I don’t think they will expect such a move. If they are keeping a watch at all, it will be on the aeroplane.’
‘There is no necessity to send Forsyth with me,’ said Billy, ‘you may want him.’
‘I shall have Hallows, so I’ll be all right. At any rate Forsyth will be able to give you a hand with your bandages, and see that they are kept clean, if he does nothing else.’
>
The matter was fully discussed, and Forsyth was sent for and given his instructions. Then leaving all arrangements to the Commissioner, Wallace and Brien retired to bed.
Batty saw them safely tucked in and contemplated them with satisfaction.
‘I don’t know as I ever seen two gentlemen pull theirselves together arter a bad doin’ like you an’ Major Brien, sir,’ he said. ‘But all the same if I could only lay ’longside that craft wot did it, I’d give a year’s pay an’ rations. An’ swab me decks – beggin’ yer pardon, sir – but ’is own mother wouldn’t know ’im when I’d done wiv ’im!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A New Discovery
Brien left for Delhi early next morning accompanied by Forsyth. His car got away from the Commissioner’s bungalow very quietly and unobtrusively, and was met outside Karachi by another car containing the escort of policemen. Two of the latter changed over, and this arrangement was adhered to all the way to Delhi. Billy was under the most rigid surveillance. Whenever he moved from the car for meals, or any other purpose, he was accompanied by a bodyguard, much to his chagrin and Forsyth’s amusement. Major Watkins had given implicit orders, and they were obeyed to the letter. It was no use Billy protesting – if he did so he was met with a bland smile, and a shrug of the shoulders from the stalwart sergeant in command; so he gave it up and resigned himself to his fate. But he afterwards remarked that he felt like a particularly evil criminal going to execution.
Nothing untoward happened on the way, and the weary journey was almost as uninteresting as it was tiring. Forsyth had secretly hoped for a scrap, as he put it, and great was his disappointment when on Friday morning the two cars, covered with thick dust, arrived at Viceregal Lodge without having had the slightest suspicion of trouble from any quarter.
Sir Henry Muir met them, and gasped with astonishment and dismay when he saw the heavily bandaged figure before him. But Billy refused to answer any questions until he had gone straight to the Viceroy’s study, without waiting for a bath and change of clothing, and had handed over the documents in his possession. He insisted upon Lord Oundle examining them carefully before putting them away in the big safe; then with a sigh of satisfaction and utter weariness he sank limply into a chair.
The Viceroy, seeing the condition he was in, insisted on his having a rest before telling them of his and Wallace’s adventures, and sent for a doctor to attend to him. A wire was dispatched to Wallace to announce the safe arrival of the plans, and Billy gladly went to bed and slept till the evening. Then, seated in an easy chair and wrapped in a dressing-gown, he told the whole story of the chase after the plans, the smashing of the Russian power in India, the manner in which Dorin and Levinsky had eluded them, and how he and his chief had almost been burnt to death.
Lord Oundle, Sir Henry Muir and Sir Edward Willys – for the latter was present – listened in amazement, and when Billy had finished his recital, there was a dumbfounded silence lasting several minutes.
‘By Gad!’ exclaimed Sir Edward at last. ‘You two are marvels. The whole thing sounds like an Edgar Allan Poe story.’
‘Don’t include me as a marvel, sir,’ said Billy. ‘Sir Leonard Wallace thought out everything – I only acted under his orders.’
‘And you acted damn well,’ replied the other. ‘When shall I have the pleasure of meeting Sir Leonard? I want to see what manner of man this is and shake him by the hand.’
‘You won’t see him until he has got hold of Levinsky and Dorin,’ replied Brien. ‘If they haven’t already escaped, he’ll get them. And I am afraid it will be some time before you can shake him by the hand.’
‘Why?’
‘He was more badly burnt than I, and his hand is likely to be in bandages for some time.’
There was a murmur of sympathy.
‘You’ll find him a very unobtrusive man in his ordinary life,’ said the Viceroy to Sir Edward. ‘And you’ll never get him to talk about himself.’
‘I don’t want him to talk about himself,’ replied the Commander-in-Chief, ‘but I confess I have a great curiosity to see him.’
‘You’ll get a surprise, sir,’ said Billy. ‘He always gives people who do not know him the impression that he is too languid to bother about anything. In fact he is, as Lord Oundle says, a most remarkably unobtrusive fellow away from his work, and even then he very seldom appears to bother. I have never seen him excited, and it is a very rare event for him to be annoyed.’
‘You only make me the more anxious to meet him.’
‘Well, I hope you will very soon, Willys,’ said the Viceroy. He proceeded to tell Brien that both Sanders and Rainer had furnished reports which gave some idea of the progress Wallace was making in his investigations. He also said that owing to the foresight Leonard had shown in arranging for the various raids throughout the country, and the rapidity with which he had caused them to be carried out, they had been uniformly successful. Stacks of the most seditious literature had been discovered, over forty Russian spies had been captured at the various depots, and the addresses of almost two hundred others found.
‘Altogether,’ wound up the Viceroy, ‘the whole thing has been a most amazing success. I little thought, when I cabled for Wallace, that he was going to bring to light this deadly plot against Great Britain. He deserves the grateful thanks of the British Government, and the Government and people of this country, for preventing a terrible disaster.’
Billy grinned.
‘If you start thanking him when he arrives,’ he said, ‘he’ll die from embarrassment. He absolutely loathes thanks for anything, and notoriety makes him as timid as a schoolgirl.’
‘He’ll have to put up with it this time,’ said Sir Edward. ‘We can’t have him doing all this and then running away to his burrow like a rabbit.’
The doctor came to announce that too much talking was bad for his patient; so, protesting vehemently, Billy went back to bed. Before going, however, he saw Lady Oundle and Doreen for a little while, the two of them being all concern and sympathy. They insisted on his having every comfort that they could devise and altogether, as Billy grumbled to the grinning Forsyth, made him feel that he was a baby in long clothes and that they would next offer him one of the rubber comforters, beloved of babies of tender age, and generally known as ‘dummies’.
Sir Henry Muir was greatly amused over Sanders’ change of attitude. He told Billy how the Commissioner for Simla had gone into rhapsodies about Wallace while talking to him on the telephone.
‘Considering Sanders’ remarks before Wallace arrived in India,’ he said, ‘it was a most extraordinary turn round. Why, some of his statements almost sounded like hero-worship!’
Billy laughed.
‘Good old Sanders!’ he said, and presently fell asleep.
In the meantime Wallace had been far from idle. He had spent a quiet morning after Brien had left, but in the afternoon accompanied Watkins to his office, and personally searched through some of the documents which had come from the house at Bunda Road in the hope that information respecting other hiding places of Dorin and company would come to light. He also questioned the prisoners captured on the premises, putting them through a severe cross-examination, but nothing transpired, and he returned to the Commissioner’s house, still without the slightest clue as to the whereabouts of his elusive foes. He and the Major discussed the matter till the doctor arrived and pleaded with Wallace to go to bed; which he did, but still continued talking to Watkins, who sat on a chair by the bedside. The latter, having thoroughly combed the whole city, gave it as his opinion that both Dorin and his companion had escaped out of Karachi on the night of Levinsky’s rescue, and suggested that they would probably make for Bombay and try to board a ship there. But Leonard pointed out that the police had been warned at Bombay, and that the two spies would suspect that and in consequence would not dare to show themselves there. He repeated the conviction that they were still in Karachi waiting in the hope that chance would give them an oppor
tunity of recapturing the plans. How correct he was in his surmise events were to prove.
After breakfast the next morning he lay in a long chair on the veranda, smoking furiously and thinking deeply; apparently quite oblivious to the presence of the Commissioner or anybody else. Eventually the Major recognised that it were best to leave him entirely alone, and stole quietly away. He met Batty in the hall and told him that he thought Sir Leonard did not wish to be disturbed.
‘Bless you, sir!’ said the mariner, ‘I know the signs. Sometimes, when ’e ’as a bit of a corker to unravel, ’e sits for hours an’ don’t say a word, an’ then nobody dare interrupt ’im an’, if they did, like as not ’e wouldn’t ’ear ’em. ’E’s probably putting ’isself in the place o’ them blokes an’ tryin’ to think with their minds.’
‘I can see you have a great admiration for Sir Leonard,’ said the Commissioner.
‘Admiration ain’t the word, sir. ’E’s the best man wot ever drew breath, an’ as for brains – my word, but ’e’s just a bloomin’ marvel, beggin’ yer pardon, sir. An’ there ain’t nothing ’e can’t do! ’Ave you ever seed ’im shoot?’
‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t.’
‘That’s pity, sir. Swab me decks, but it’s a fair treat. ’E never seems to take no aim, an’ ’e just plunks ’is bullet where ’e wants it. ’E seemed to miss when that there bloke Dorin went down the trap t’other night, but I wouldn’t mind bettin’ that ’e ’it ’im somewhere. No,’ wound up Batty, with the air of a judge summing up, ‘yer can’t get away from it – there ain’t no man in the world that is a patch on Sir Leonard Wallace, with all respects to you, sir; and ’is missus – beggin’ yer pardon, I mean Lady Wallace – is just the right lady for ’im. She’s the kindest ’earted, and most ’andsome woman wot I ever knowed.’
The Mystery of Tunnel 51 (Wallace of the Secret Service Series) Page 26
