‘There are several reasons,’ retorted Carter, ‘all good ’uns. First of all I ain’t a murderer by desire, although you seem to have got it into your head that I am. Second, I’ve got no hankering to feel a rope round my neck – I’m in bad enough as it is. Third, why the devil should I put myself into your blooming power by killing a bloke so that you could always hold the murder over my head? I ain’t quite so green as I look, mister. There are other reasons, but I’ve given you enough to go on with.’
‘You seem to forget,’ observed Levinsky, ‘that you are already in my power. It would be easy enough to hand you over to the police, if I so desired.’
Carter laughed with genuine amusement.
‘I’ll lay you a hundred to one that you wouldn’t dare,’ he chuckled. ‘I know too much about you now, see?’
For a moment Levinsky’s eyes glittered evilly then he smiled. He crossed the room to a side table, helped himself to a cigar, which he lit carefully, returned to the desk and resumed his seat.
‘That proves to me,’ he declared, ‘that you are not to be trusted.’
‘Tit for tat,’ retorted Carter coolly. ‘You play the dirty on me, and I do ditto with you. You play straight with me, and I play straight with you. That’s fair enough, ain’t it?’
‘I do not make terms with underlings,’ snapped Levinsky, suddenly throwing all smoothness aside, ‘and if I command you to kill this spy, you will do so. Do you understand?’
‘I understand all right, but that isn’t to say that I’m going to do your dirty work for you.’
There was the sound of a door opening behind him, and the tramp of several men entering the room, but Carter did not look round until Levinsky ordered him to stand up and move back. He rose to his feet nonchalantly then, and surveyed the newcomers. Dorin strode up to the desk, and threw himself into a chair close to Levinsky. Two foreign-looking men, one short and stout, the other of medium height but broad-shouldered, stood by the door closely guarding Maddison who, with pinioned hands, stood between them. No sign of recognition passed between the two Secret Service men. They looked curiously at each other as though each was wondering who the other was. Levinsky sat eyeing Maddison, a sneering smile on his face.
‘So,’ he remarked, ‘I meet a member of the great British Secret Service; or is it that you are merely an interfering busybody? Approach closer that I may get a better view of you.’
His guards hustled Maddison up to the desk, and Levinsky sat looking at him, the jeering smile still on his face, his fingers tapping lightly on the blotting pad before him. Several seconds went by before he spoke again; then suddenly his light manner changed and he bent forward, his features distorted with fury.
‘You fool,’ he snarled, ‘did you really think that you could follow my friend Dorin here without its being known? Oh, it was a very clever plot, no doubt, but you failed to give us credit for the intelligence we happen to possess. Your Sir Leonard Wallace goes off to Aldershot, and is careful to travel by way of lanes and byroads in order that he may ascertain that he is being followed – he probably knew that he had been trailed everywhere he went during the last few weeks. You have your instructions to drive along some distance in the rear and, of course, you quickly become aware that Monsieur Dorin is on the track of the so-clever Sir Leonard. You were directed not to lose touch once you ascertained that you were after your quarry until you discovered the destination and headquarters of Monsieur Dorin. Well, you have succeeded; you have done your job. You are satisfied I hope?’
‘Perfectly, thanks,’ replied Maddison quietly and, despite himself, Carter was unable to repress a grin.
‘Ah, bah!’ snapped Levinsky. ‘You are fools, you and Sir Leonard Wallace, and all the rest of you. You perhaps think we are children to be taken in so easily? My friend Dorin knew you were after him before he reached – where is it?’ He turned to his companion.
‘Byfleet,’ supplied the fair-haired Russian.
‘Yes, Byfleet. What did he do? Did he endeavour to shake you off? No, Monsieur, he did not. When this poor soldier,’ he indicated Carter, ‘ran away, he followed him, and picked him up, but he knew all the time that you were behind. At Leyton, where Monsieur Dorin stopped for refreshment, he telephoned to me, and waited till the dark came so that it would be easier to capture you. As the result of our telephone conversation, I made preparations, and you entered the trap like the little fly going to the spider. Confess, Monsieur, you were very astonished when several men suddenly swarmed onto your car and rendered you helpless, were you not?’
‘It was rather unexpected,’ admitted Maddison sadly.
Levinsky laughed almost joyously.
‘Why do you think you were allowed to follow my friend?’ he asked.
‘Because he couldn’t shake me off,’ retorted Maddison.
‘Not so. It was because we could learn from you something of the plans of Sir Leonard Wallace.’
‘And do you really think I should betray them, if I knew anything about them?’ asked Maddison contemptuously.
‘If you do not, you will die.’
‘And if I do?’
Levinsky shrugged his shoulders.
‘We shall have to keep you a prisoner until we can change our address so that you cannot again find us.’
‘Don’t talk such rot!’ snapped Maddison. ‘I know perfectly well that you’ll kill me whether I talk or not, so why pretend?’
Again Levinsky shrugged his shoulders.
‘Since you know so much, it is useless for me to talk. In seeing the car in which sat Monsieur Dorin, you learnt too much to start with. It is also a great triumph for us to be able to dispose of two of Sir Leonard’s men at the same time.’
‘Two?’
‘But of course.’ He turned sharply to Carter. ‘Come here, you!’ he commanded.
Carter stepped up to the desk, and found himself confronted by two revolvers, one held by Levinsky, the other by Dorin.
‘Search him, and tie his hands together,’ commanded the former, and the two satellites made a very thorough job of it.
‘Here,’ exclaimed Carter; ‘what’s the meaning of this?’
‘It means that both strings to Sir Leonard Wallace’s bow have come untied,’ laughed Levinsky unpleasantly. ‘We knew all along that you were not what you pretended to be. I know far more about you than this other gentleman. Your name is Carter, you were until a few months ago an inspector at New Scotland Yard. You see, I have my own espionage system. When you were discovered at Aldershot as a soldier delivering inflammatory messages, we watched events with interest. I must congratulate you on some very clever play-acting. You would have made a fortune on the stage. I confess that we would have been taken in completely, if we had not known who you were. Luck was on our side, Mr Carter, for you were the only member of your so-called Intelligence Department whom we knew by name and sight apart, of course, from Sir Leonard himself and Major Brien.’
Carter laughed. He decided that it was no use keeping up the pretence any longer.
‘I suppose I must consider myself honoured,’ he observed. ‘Well, it’s a relief, in a sense, to find myself unmasked. I can now give my well-known impersonation of a gentleman endeavouring to speak the King’s English. It’s a pity,’ he added regretfully, ‘that the little melodrama on the steps of the Cambridge Hospital went adrift. I rather fancied it was distinctly fruity.’
Levinsky banged his fist angrily on the desk.
‘You appear to regard your capture as a joke,’ he roared.
‘Isn’t it?’ asked Carter, in tones of surprise.
The Russian’s face was contorted with fury for a few moments; then abruptly he calmed down.
‘You will quickly find that it is no joke,’ he remarked quietly. ‘I suppose Sir Leonard Wallace thought that one of you was bound to succeed. The gentleman in the car might have been shaken off, but, like veritable innocents, we would be sure to take you, Mr Carter, to our bosoms. We have done what was expected of u
s, but the joke is with us, and Sir Leonard loses two of his men.’
‘There,’ put in the irrepressible Carter; ‘you admit yourself there is a joke. Gor’ blimy!’ he added, lapsing into his previous phraseology. ‘Ain’t you blooming inconsistent-like?’
Dorin shot an angry glance at him, but Levinsky now had himself more under command.
‘Which of you is most au fait with Sir Leonard Wallace’s plans?’ he asked.
‘Neither of us,’ returned Maddison.
‘What have you to say?’ Levinsky demanded sharply of Carter.
‘Quite a lot,’ was the reply. ‘I was always a good speaker. Now, what subject would you like me to discourse upon? I’m very good at horse racing or—’
‘Be quiet!’ shouted the angry Russian, unable to control his temper in the face of such facetiousness. ‘If I have any more of that kind of thing from you, I will order you to be gagged.’
‘Don’t be unkind, uncle dear,’ murmured the young man.
‘Let him carry on, Tommy,’ advised Maddison, ‘or we’ll be here all night, and I don’t like his face well enough to view such an event with composure.’
‘You’ve said a mouthful,’ agreed Carter. ‘He has a mug like the things on Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Go it, Beelzebub! What ho, for the inquisition!’
Suddenly Levinsky rose from his chair and, leaning forward, brought the flat of his hand down with resounding force on Carter’s mouth.
‘Perhaps that will help you to realise the seriousness of your position,’ he ground out through clenched teeth.
But Carter still continued to grin, though a trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his lips.
‘Naughty, naughty,’ he chided, ‘uncle mustn’t lose his temper like that.’
‘It is useless to hope to bring a man of such childish temperament to a sense of gravity,’ interposed Dorin. ‘We may perhaps learn something of interest from the other.’
‘He will sober down quickly enough presently,’ growled Levinsky.
He picked up the revolver, which had been taken from Carter.
‘Loaded with blanks, I suppose,’ he said, breaking the weapon, and shaking the cartridges out onto the desk. ‘As I thought. A very pretty little comedy indeed. It is almost a pity that such a display of histrionic ability was not more successful.’
For nearly an hour he and Dorin tried by every means in their power to get the two Englishmen to divulge secrets of the Intelligence Department, but they might as well have been speaking to a blank wall. Maddison merely shook his head in reply to their questions, or answered in monosyllables. Carter continued to treat the whole affair as a species of entertainment in which he was cast for the comedy role. On more than one occasion Levinsky was on the verge of repeating his previous cowardly blow, but restrained himself, the unholy gleam in his eye causing Maddison to reflect that he was nursing some diabolical scheme.
Eventually the two Russians discontinued their crossexamination, and Levinsky stood up.
‘I told you,’ he observed, addressing Carter, ‘that you would have the privilege of removing this man from the world. The time has come for you to do so. Afterwards my friends here will suggest a manner in which we can kill you amusingly, in order that you may enjoy the joke to the full.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Carter politely. ‘I hope it won’t put you to any inconvenience?’
‘Not at all,’ returned the Russian, bowing ironically; ‘it will be a pleasure.’ He turned to Dorin. ‘Will you call Dr Prilukoff, my dear Paul.’
The fair-haired Russian smiled grimly, and nodded. As soon as he had left the room, Levinsky resumed speaking in a politely conversational voice, but there was a deadly menace behind his words.
‘Dr Prilukoff is, I think I may safely say, the finest hypnotist in the world. He has been exceedingly useful to the Soviet on several occasions, and enjoys a marvellous reputation in Russia. You have already declared, Mr Carter, that you will not kill your friend here; I as confidently assert that you will. If you will not do it of your own volition, Dr Prilukoff will hypnotise you into doing it.’
The fiendish ingenuity of the man robbed Carter of speech for a few moments. He stared wide-eyed at the cruel face before him; then began to laugh, though a trifle shakily.
‘Of course you can’t possibly mean it,’ he muttered.
‘I certainly do mean it,’ was the reply, delivered in a merciless voice there was no mistaking.
There was no longer any thought of persiflage in Carter’s mind. The inhuman barbarity of the Russian made it impossible to continue to treat him as a human being.
‘You fiend!’ he cried hoarsely; ‘you damnable fiend! But if you think I can be hypnotised into committing such a devilish crime, you’ve made a jolly big mistake.’
‘We shall see,’ returned Levinsky confidently.
Except that his face had gone a trifle pale, Maddison showed no sign of concern. Carter looked at him questioningly, and received a shrug of the shoulders by way of reply. The door opened and Dorin reappeared, followed by the strangest-looking man Carter had ever seen. He was tall and thin almost to the point of emaciation. There was not a vestige of hair on his head, which was as smooth as a billiards ball, but a pair of the shaggiest eyebrows possible overhung deep-set eyes, magnified to a ludicrous extent by the rimless glasses he wore. His nose was long and pointed, and his mouth a slit without lips. The young Secret Service man gazed at this curious creature in wonder, and was only brought back to the realisation of his surroundings by the sound of Levinsky’s voice telling the newcomer the purpose for which he was required. Dr Prilukoff gave a croaking sort of chuckle and, walking up to Carter, gazed at him long and earnestly. After a few moments his unkempt eyebrows met together in a frown, while he shook his head, and muttered to himself.
‘He apparently doesn’t think you’re a good subject, Tommy,’ observed Maddison cheerfully.
‘He’ll jolly soon find I am not,’ replied Carter, ‘if he tries any of his beastly tricks on me.’
‘It will be necessary,’ came the cruel voice of Levinsky, ‘for this gentleman to be gagged as well as bound, I think. A sudden shout, as the – er – executioner approaches him, might seriously interfere with the satisfactory termination of the entertainment.’
Dr Prilukoff turned aside, and spoke earnestly to Dorin and Levinsky. Afterwards, Maddison was pushed into a chair and bound to it, while a gag was thrust into his mouth and fastened tightly. From a drawer in the desk Dorin took a long slender knife, and held it up for Carter’s inspection.
‘This is the knife you will use,’ he announced, as though he were merely describing an object of casual interest. ‘As soon as the doctor has brought you under influence, your hands will be untied, and this weapon handed to you.’
‘It will be interesting to view your dismay when you come out of your trance, and realise what you have done,’ observed Levinsky.
‘If you think this old scarecrow is going to hypnotise me, you’ve made a bloomer,’ snapped Carter.
Suddenly the doctor was standing before him, moving his talon-like fingers to and fro in front of his face. Behind them glittered those ludicrously distorted eyes, and they seemed to be boring into Carter’s very brain. He had not realised before what power there was in them, and gradually it began to dawn on him that he would have to fight with all the strength of his mind to retain his senses. For the first time the real hideousness of the plot became apparent to him. He shouted his execrations, his defiance, but still those unholy, detestable eyes glared at him, the fingers continued their undulating movements, while not a sound issued from the ugly mouth of the scoundrel, who was doing his utmost to obtain an abominable control over his senses. The eyes were growing larger, more evil, until the whole world seemed to be eyes, merciless, hard, devouring. With a shock, Carter realised that a feeling of numbness was stealing over him; he was no longer able to cry out. Desperately he strove to turn his head, shut his eyes, anything rather th
an face that gimlet gaze any longer, but, like a rabbit stupefied by a hovering bird of prey, he was held in thrall. His brain was still working; thank God for that! He must concentrate with all his might against that sinister thing that was threatening his reason. Though he did not know it, the perspiration was running down his face in streams, as he fought that terrific fight with the hypnotist. But the agony was not all on his side. The doctor himself was feeling the strain. Never had he dealt with a subject so difficult. The onlookers stood fascinated, not daring to move, hardly venturing to breathe. With a mighty, supreme effort the mesmerist exerted all his power. Carter felt his senses reeling, he was beginning to lose hold on himself, his brain seemed to be enveloped in a cloud, and he was falling through space. In a great despair he became aware that he was praying, praying that this awful thing would release him from its miasmatic grip. Then, from what appeared to be miles away, came a voice:
‘This has gone on long enough. Hands up, all of you!’
The spell was broken. Carter recovered full possession of his senses with a rush, but he was weak, unnerved, and was compelled to lean on the desk for support. At the sound of the voice, the Russians had turned with one accord towards the door. Sir Leonard Wallace stood on the threshold, a revolver in his hand. Behind him, and a little to one side, was Major Brien similarly armed, and farther back still could be seen the dim forms of several other men.
Dr Prilukoff took one glance at the newcomers; then, with an animal-like scream of fury, turned back to the man who had defied his hypnotic powers for so long, picked up the knife from the desk, and attempted to stab him. But the weapon never reached its object, a shot rang out, the doctor, for a moment, stood poised like a statue; then crashed to the floor.
‘I think that’s the best thing that could happen to him,’ observed Sir Leonard coolly.
He stepped into the room, his companions crowding after him. Maddison was quickly released, and the four remaining Russians disarmed and shepherded into a corner. Someone found a jug of water, and gave Carter a drink, which he accepted gratefully. Levinsky and Dorin had been too overcome by astonishment and dismay to attempt any resistance. They stood now gazing at their captors, as though unable to believe the evidence of their eyes. Maddison pointed out Levinsky.
Wallace of the Secret Service (Wallace of the Secret Service Series) Page 14
