‘Damn you!’ snarled Carter. ‘I’ve already told you there ain’t nobody behind me.’
Wallace shrugged his shoulders.
All right,’ he observed, ‘have it your own way. Will you please call the escort, Colonel?’
The grey-haired doctor, a look of regret on his face, hastened from the room, returning a moment later with two military policemen, who took charge of their prisoner, and marched him away. Sir Leonard and the colonel followed behind.
‘I can’t understand the man,’ remarked the latter. ‘He appeared to be quite a cheerful young fellow until you came, Sir Leonard. I suppose people of his type are generally irresponsible.’
‘Exceedingly so,’ returned Wallace, a faint smile lurking at the corners of his lips.
His car stood awaiting him with the engine running, while the chauffeur was walking round examining the tyres. Carter and his escort had just marched a little beyond it, when the former suddenly sprang back, and there was a revolver in his hand.
‘Move a step, any mother’s son of you,’ he snarled, ‘and you’ll get a lump of lead in you.’
Backing to the driver’s seat, he climbed in, and put the car into gear.
‘Blast you!’ he yelled at Wallace. ‘You thought you were clever, didn’t you? Take that and that!’
He fired three times at the Chief of the Secret Service; then, as the escort made a frantic dash for the car, it shot forward, tearing headlong for the gates. Men, attracted by the noise, came running from every direction. Two, close to the gates, made an attempt to jump on the swiftly-moving machine, but were swept aside, and left sprawling on the road and, gathering speed every moment, the motor disappeared. A few seconds passed; then a long grey car tore by the gates in the wake of the other; a moment later another, a racing Bentley, rushed past. Sir Leonard sighed softly, and turned to the white-faced colonel, who had been urgently demanding to know if he were hurt.
‘Hurt?’ repeated Wallace. ‘No; I’m quite all right, thank you. Rather a clever piece of work that, don’t you think?’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed the stupefied medical man. ‘You seem to take the matter pretty coolly.’
‘There’s no use taking it any other way,’ was the retort. He instructed his chauffeur to go back to London by train; then turned to the two depressed-looking military policemen. ‘You men can return to barracks,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain matters to your CO.’
‘But, sir—’ commenced one.
‘It is all right. I am Colonel Wallace of the Intelligence Department.’
The men saluted and departed.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ queried the anxious doctor.
‘You can put me near a telephone, and give me luncheon, if you will,’ replied Wallace cheerfully. ‘But perhaps it’s too late to get food now?’
‘Not a bit of it. Come along with me, Sir Leonard. You are sure you are not hurt? That scoundrel fired straight at you.’
‘No; I’m not hurt,’ declared Wallace, then added sotto voce: ‘Blank cartridges don’t do any damage – as a rule!’
Carter drove away from Aldershot at headlong speed, choosing bye-roads and lanes in preference to the more frequented main roads. He was enjoying himself thoroughly, and meandered across country almost joyfully. Carter had passed out of Sandhurst into the Army in 1917. His peculiar talents had made him an asset to the Intelligence Department and, after the Armistice, he had been given a billet at Scotland Yard where, in a short time, he had won quite a lot of fame and notoriety. Eventually, when Sir Leonard Wallace had asked for a man of ability and parts, he had been selected. The Assistant Commissioner’s remarks, after conveying the news to Carter, are enlightening; ‘I have chosen you,’ he had said, ‘partially because of your record, partially because I wish to save myself the sleepless nights your unconventional methods cause me. Good luck!’ He had proved a great success in his new sphere, and his happy-go-lucky disposition, allied to his undoubted talents and efficiency, had made him extremely popular with all his colleagues from the chief down.
As he tore along, he alternately whistled and sang to himself, smiling every now and again, as he cocked an eye at the mirror jutting out by his side, and satisfied himself that he was being followed.
‘Oh, for the life of a vagabond,’ he sang; then swore as the speed of the car began to abate, and sundry spluttering sounds came from the engine. ‘Running out of petrol,’ he decided; ‘but there must be a reserve tap somewhere. Now where the deuce is it?’
The engine gave a final splutter, and ceased functioning. Carter sat still, and frowned thoughtfully. He was in a quiet country lane apparently miles from anywhere.
‘That’s the worst of not knowing the car you’re driving,’ he soliloquised. ‘Still, as well here as anywhere else. Heigho! For the Bolshie.’
A long grey car came gliding alongside, and Carter’s manner changed immediately. He looked furtively at the men sitting in it.
‘All right,’ he growled. ‘It’s a cop. This blooming bus has run out of petrol, otherwise you wouldn’t have pinched me.’
‘My dear fellow,’ protested one of the men in suave tones, ‘what can possibly have given you the idea that we wanted to – er – pinch you? We have followed you in the hope that we might be of assistance to you.’
‘Come off it!’ jeered Carter. ‘You tell that story to a bloke in a madhouse. He might believe you.’
‘I quite appreciate your disinclination to believe that anybody would be anxious to help you after what has happened. Nevertheless we have followed you for that purpose. We have been interested in your recent adventures, and were lucky enough to witness your escape from custody.’
The look of suspicion on Carter’s face was replaced by one of surprise.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded bluntly.
‘Never mind that now,’ returned the other impatiently. ‘There is no time to lose. By now there is a hue and cry after you and, if you want to escape, you’d better do what I tell you. My friend here will lend you his coat. That will hide your tunic, and you’d better throw your cap away. Come on – jump in quickly!’
Again the look of suspicion returned to Carter’s face.
‘Nothing doing,’ he remarked. ‘How do I know that this ain’t a trick?’
‘Don’t be foolish!’ snapped the man. ‘Why should we desire to trick you? If we were helping the police, should we not have said so when you were so willing to surrender a few moments ago?’
‘Tell me who you are then,’ persisted Carter obstinately, ‘and why you’re so blooming interested in me.’
‘Oh, very well,’ was the irritable reply. ‘We are agents of the Russian Soviet Republic, and our concern for your safety is prompted by the knowledge that you are in trouble through expressing sentiments coincident with ours. Now are you satisfied?’
‘Struth!’ exclaimed Carter. ‘This looks like a bit of all right.’
He got out of Sir Leonard’s car, and put on the overcoat handed to him by the second man, throwing his uniform cap over an adjoining hedge.
‘What about this bus?’ he asked.
‘We’ll have to leave it here, of course. You did not think we were going to take it in tow, did you?’
‘No,’ returned the young man in regretful tones, ‘but it’s a damn pity. I didn’t want to lose it.’
‘How far do you think you would have gone without being stopped?’ sneered the other. ‘A description of that car is being circulated all over the country by this time. Get in!’ he added with an oath. ‘We can’t expect to be alone here much longer.’
Carter hesitated no more, and climbed into the tonneau. A moment later they were heading for London at breakneck speed. The Secret Service man glanced back anxiously, but a tiny object, merely a speck in the midst of a cloud of dust, reassured him, and he smiled to himself. When speaking to the Russian he had looked searchingly at the faces of him and his companion, but the huge goggles they wore were a most effective disg
uise. He had thus learnt nothing from his scrutiny. Not that it mattered very much, he reflected. During the journey he leant forward on several occasions, and asked questions, but the men in front were in no mood for conversation, perhaps because the speed of the car rendered any attempt at speech well-nigh impossible.
On reaching Kingston, pace was greatly reduced, and they turned northward running through Richmond and Kew and on to Willesden, after which they headed east skirting north London by way of Highgate and Stamford Hill, eventually pulling up outside a hotel at Leyton.
‘I think you will be glad of a meal,’ observed the man, who had spoken before, turning and smiling at Carter.
‘I could certainly do with a bite, guv’nor,’ replied the latter.
‘Stay where you are, and we’ll send you out something. You mustn’t get out of the car or your khaki trousers will be seen.’
Carter nodded, and the two Russians entered the hotel. They spent nearly an hour inside, and the Secret Service man concluded that they were wasting time on purpose, in order to arrive at their destination after dark. They did him well, pressing enough beer and sandwiches on him to satisfy a platoon, as he put it. It was rapidly becoming dusk when the car left Leyton and ran south to West Ham, and it was quite dark when the Whitechapel Road was reached. Carter almost lost his bearings, as they twisted and turned their way through a labyrinth of dirty, ill-lit streets, eventually stopping before a building, the facade of which was grimy with the accumulated soot of decades. The ground floor was devoted to a second-hand clothes shop. Carter was hurried through this by the man who had done all the talking, up a narrow flight of stairs, dimly lighted by a smelly oil lamp halfway up, on to a spacious landing which, to his surprise, was softly carpeted, and also furnished with two well-upholstered easy chairs, a table on which were a few magazines, and a small bookcase crammed with the cheap editions of various novels. A tastefully shaded lamp threw a subdued light all round, enabling Carter to notice that three rooms opened on to the landing, and that the stairs ascending to the upper regions of the house were, unlike the flight he had just mounted, covered with a thick carpet. His guide removed his goggles, disclosing a fair, clean-shaven, somewhat fleshy face to view. His eyes were of such a pale blue that they looked almost colourless. He was a big, burly fellow, whose bulk suggested a liking for the good things of the table.
‘You are about to enjoy Russian hospitality,’ he said. ‘Please sit here for a few minutes. I will return shortly.’
‘Here!’ checked Carter; ‘half a minute, old cock. I’m getting a bit out of my depth. What have you brought me to this place for, and where’s your mate?’
‘My companion is putting away the car,’ replied the Russian readily enough. ‘As for the reason I have brought you here, is it not evident? Nobody will look for you in this building. Even if the whole of London is searched, you will be perfectly safe. And there will be a very thorough search for you, believe me.’
‘I suppose there will,’ agreed Carter. ‘Did I kill that fellow I fired at?’
The other shook his head.
‘Apparently not,’ he returned. ‘I do not think you even wounded him, which is a very great pity.’
‘Why? What is he to you?’
‘He is the inveterate enemy of freedom. Have patience, and you will know all in due course.’
He strode to a door, opened it, and disappeared, leaving Carter to sink into one of the easy chairs. Nearly a quarter of an hour went by before he emerged again; then he beckoned to the young man, who rose quickly and followed him into a brilliantly illumined room furnished most luxuriously as an office. A tall, dark man, whose features were decidedly Semitic, stood awaiting him with his back to a glowing fire. Dark piercing eyes, above a large hooked nose, gave him the appearance of a hawk. Instinctively Carter recognised that he was in the presence of a personality.
‘This is the man of whom I have been speaking,’ announced the guide by way of introduction.
The dark man bowed coldly to Carter.
‘You seem to have got yourself into a lot of trouble,’ he remarked. ‘I understand that there are probably three charges against you: sedition, attempted murder, and desertion.’
‘Looks like it,’ admitted Carter ruefully.
‘Thanks to Monsieur Dorin here, you are safe, at least for the time being.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that your subsequent safety depends very much on your future behaviour.’
‘Blimy!’ exploded Carter. ‘That sounds like a blooming threat.’
‘Not at all. It is necessary, however, for my colleagues and me to safeguard ourselves. If we use you, we must be certain that you will not betray us.’
‘I can’t say I like this,’ muttered the young man. He turned to the other Russian. ‘You said you wanted to help me to escape. You didn’t say nothing about using me.’
‘Quite so. But since you expressed yourself at Aldershot quite openly as a republican, and one who desired to see the Russian form of government in Great Britain, surely you can have no objection to assisting us.’
‘I’m out to help you all I can,’ retorted Carter, ‘but there ain’t no sense in threatening me.’
‘We must be sure that you will not betray us.’
‘Is it likely that I’d betray you, when my sentiments are the same as yours, and when the blasted police are all out to clap me into choky?’
‘No; perhaps not,’ acknowledged the dark man. ‘There is a good deal of sense in what you say. Still we hardly know you, do we? The manner in which you upheld our doctrines to your comrades at Aldershot was reported to us, as was also the rough treatment you suffered. We decided then that you might prove useful to us. Unfortunately I’m afraid your escape and the attempt to shoot Sir Leonard Wallace has—’
‘Sir Leonard Wallace! Who’s he?’
‘The man at whom you fired. Did you not know him?’
Carter shook his head.
‘I didn’t know his name,’ he said. ‘He’s a bloke from the War Office or Scotland Yard, ain’t he?’
Dorin smiled.
‘He’s even more important than that,’ he stated. ‘He is the head of the most efficient secret service in the world, which Great Britain pretends does not exist.’
‘Secret Service!’ exclaimed Carter. ‘Struth!’
‘Now perhaps you understand why I expressed the regret that you did not kill him. You must be a very bad shot.’
‘Could you shoot straight, if you was putting a car into gear at the same time?’ snarled Carter. ‘Try it and see!’
‘Well, well,’ observed the Jewish-looking man in conciliatory tones, ‘as you say in your language, there is no use in crying over spilt milk. We must see if we can make use of you, even though you will be a marked man. Sit down, and tell me exactly what that devil Wallace had to say to you.’
He crossed to the large desk, sat down behind it, and motioned Carter to a chair opposite him. Dorin took a seat close by. The two of them questioned the Englishman very closely, and he replied unhesitatingly and with apparent frankness. To his mind a lot of their questions were irrelevant, but their very irrelevancy kept him on his guard, as he felt that they were actually testing him. He began to entertain a great deal of respect for their shrewdness and keen intelligence, particularly with regard to the dark man, whose name it transpired was Levinsky. At last the latter rose, and stood, for a moment, looking down at Carter. There was a smile on his face, and a glint in his eyes, which the latter did not like.
‘Your replies have been singularly open and convincing,’ he observed. ‘I congratulate you. At the same time, your bearing seems to me to be hardly that of a man desperate enough to attempt murder.’
‘Here,’ protested Carter, purposely misunderstanding him, ‘you don’t mean to say you are going to order me to croak someone?’
‘Not at all. At least not at the moment. What I intended to convey was that your bearing now is hardly that of a man who
, a few hours ago, did his best to murder another.’
‘What do you expect me to be like?’ asked Carter sarcastically. ‘All wind up and goosey, I suppose? Well, let me tell you something; I’m not made like that, see? Besides, I didn’t kill the bloke.’
‘I am glad you have given us an insight into your character,’ murmured Levinsky. ‘We shall be able to judge you all the better, when you are put to the test.’
‘What the hell do you mean by that?’
‘Merely what I say.’
He turned to Dorin, and said something in a very low voice in Russian but, low as it was, Carter heard and understood. The Russian language was by no means strange to him. Dorin went quietly from the room, and Levinsky’s piercing eyes rested on the young Englishman again.
‘It may be of interest to you,’ he remarked, ‘to know that we have captured a spy. He will be brought here and questioned in an endeavour to discover certain things. Whether he answers satisfactorily or not, it is necessary that he should die. I said a few minutes ago that I had no intention of asking you to kill anybody; at least not just yet. I have changed my mind. You shall have the privilege of removing this man from the world, as soon as I give you the signal. Such an act will at once prove your loyalty to the cause, and give you an opportunity to satisfy your craving to commit murder.’
The cold-blooded manner in which he spoke sent a shiver down Carter’s spine, but he gave no outward sign of the horror which filled him. Instead he winked an eye and laughed.
‘Bit of a joker, ain’t you?’ he commented.
Levinsky leant on the desk, and his eyes held the other’s, ‘On the contrary,’ he purred rather than spoke, ‘I never joke.’
Carter’s frown of amazed and incredulous wonder was well done.
‘Let’s get this straight,’ he suggested. ‘Are you really proposing that I should kill a bloke?’
‘I certainly am.’
‘Well, there’s nothing doing, so get that into your nut.’
‘Will you tell me what objection you have?’ inquired Levinsky still in those sinister purring tones. ‘You seemed to feel no compunction at firing point-blank at Sir Leonard Wallace this afternoon. Why then this sudden repugnance?’
Wallace of the Secret Service (Wallace of the Secret Service Series) Page 13
