“It shall be done,” Fawley repeated stubbornly, and the light was flaming once more in his eyes. “For one week I shall be free from all the bullets in the world.”
“I shall ask you nothing of your plans,” the Prime Minister continued. “In years to come—on my deathbed, I think—these few minutes we are spending together will be one of the great memories of my life…I have been reading my history lately. It is not the first time that the future of the world has been changed by subterranean workings.”
“You can call me a spy if you like,” Fawley observed, with a smile. “I don’t mind.”
“You shouldn’t mind,” the Prime Minister replied. “They tell me that you are a millionaire and I know myself that you accept no decoration or honours except from your own country. What a reward, though, your own conscience will bring you, if we succeed. Think of the millions of lives that will be saved and lived out to their natural end. Think of the great sum of unhappiness which will be avoided—the broken hearts of the women, the ugliness of a ruined and blasted world. Fawley, sometimes the thought of another war and one’s responsibilities concerning it comes to me like a hideous nightmare. Twice I have suffered from what they called a nervous breakdown. It was from the fear that war might come again in my days. Think of being in your place!”
Fawley rose to his feet.
“I shall be no more than a cog in the wheels, sir,” he sighed. “I just had the idea. Directly it has been put on paper, the sheer simplicity of it will amaze every one. I am going to gamble on Rawson.”
“I will back you,” the Prime Minister declared. “I tell you I know for a certainty that he brings the President’s signature.”
Fawley glanced at the clock.
“Very good, sir,” he said. “Will you allow me to arrange with Malcolm for the most powerful government plane that can be spared? I shall want it ready at Heston to-morrow morning at six o’clock.”
“Where are you off to first?”
“I am afraid I shall have to go to Paris, where I am not very popular, and on to Rome, where they have sworn to have my blood. Something I saw in Germany, though, will help me there. If my scheme comes off, there will be no war.”
The Prime Minister held out both his hands. Afterwards he took his guest by the arm.
“We will go in to Malcolm together, Fawley,” he proposed. “Paris and Rome, eh? And Germany afterwards. Well, you are a brave man.”
CHAPTER XXV
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Fawley, with his hands thrust into his overcoat pockets and a freshly lit cigarette in his mouth, walked briskly to the corner of Downing Street and paused, looking around for a taxicab, apparently unconscious that he was the cynosure of a dozen pairs of eyes. A private car was waiting by the side of the curbstone, to all appearance unoccupied. Suddenly he felt a grip upon his arm—not the sinister grip of an assailant but the friendly grasp of slender fingers.
“Do not hesitate for one moment, please,” the slim figure by his side insisted. “Step into that car.”
He looked down at her with a smile. He knew very well that he had nothing to fear, for there were shadowy figures hovering around close at hand.
“Am I to be abducted again, Princess?” he asked. “This time I warn you that I have protectors at my elbow.”
“It is nevertheless I,” she declared a little petulantly, “who have to be your protector-in-chief. You do such foolish things—you who are on the black list of two countries, both of whom are well known for the efficiency of their Secret Service, and you walk about these streets as though you were invisible!”
He smiled but he followed her obediently into the car. One of those shadowy figures stepped into the roadway and whispered a word to the driver. Elida gave the man the address of the Italian Embassy.
“Alas, I must get back to my rooms,” he told her. “Sorry, but it is really important.”
“You will come out from them on a stretcher, if you do,” she answered. “Honestly, I sometimes cannot decide whether you are wilfully stupid or whether you have that sort of courage which marches with luck.”
“What have I to fear at my rooms?” he asked. “I can assure you that there will be no strangers allowed in the building for a long time to come.”
“The man whom you have to fear is Pietro Patoni,” she replied firmly. “I tell you this seriously, not as a fashion of speech. He has gone mad! I am sure of it. He believes—oh, I cannot tell you all that he believes about us. He also looks upon you as a traitor to his country.”
Fawley was silent for a moment. He appeared to be watching the street through the window. In reality, he was thinking deeply enough. Elida was probably right. It was foolish in these days not to take every precaution with the end of his efforts so closely in sight.
“Whose car is this?” he asked abruptly.
“It belongs to my uncle, the Marchese di Vasena.”
“And your destination?”
“The Italian Embassy.”
“Sanctuary or prison?” he enquired, with a grim little quiver at the corners of his lips.
“I have thrown in my hand,” she told him. “I am no longer to be considered. It is sanctuary only which I offer you.”
“But the trouble is,” he explained, “that I must go to my rooms. I am leaving England early to-morrow morning and to say nothing of my kit, there are one or two necessary papers—my passport, for instance—which I must take with me.”
“I will fetch them for you,” she announced. “You yourself—you shall not go. Please be reasonable.”
She leaned towards him. Some little quiver in her tone, perhaps the eager flash of her eyes, the closeness of her obscure presence, reminded Fawley that after all he was quite a human person. He took her hand and held it in his.
“My dear Elida,” he said, “we have been on opposite sides all this time. How can I let you play around with my papers and learn my secrets?”
“There are no secrets to be learnt from any papers you leave around,” she declared. “Besides, you need not mind my seeing anything. I told you just now I have finished with the game. I have an idea in my mind that you are playing for greater stakes than any of us, that we must all seem like little pawns on the chessboard to you. I am content. I will help you if I can and, to begin with, let me convince you of this—Pietro is absolutely and seriously insane.”
“Of course, that might complicate matters,” Fawley reflected. “As just an angry man, I had no fear of him. You see, here in London a man cannot commit murder and get away with it. He cannot even manage an abduction. Patoni in his sane moments would realise that. If he is really mad, however, that is a different matter. The cleverest schemes in the world have been most often foiled by madmen.”
“What you will do is this,” she said decidedly. “You will come with me to my uncle’s. I shall establish you in my rooms. There is no reason to bring the Embassy into the matter at all. You will then telephone your servant what things you require and if there is anything he is unable to do, you can send me. What time do you start in the morning?”
“Now, you see, I prove that I am the worst Secret Service agent in the world, because I tell you the whole truth. I am leaving from Heston to-morrow morning at six o’clock.”
“Excellent,” she replied. “I shall not believe that you are an enemy and I shall not treat you as one. You shall have your short sleep at the Embassy, this car will take you to Heston in the morning, then you must find your adventure, whatever it may be. While you are in danger, I shall be unhappy. When it is all over, I hope that you will come back. I hope,” she added, with her fingers upon his shoulders, drawing him towards her, “that you will come back to me.”
The car drew up smoothly outside the pillared portico of the Embassy. A footman came out and opened the door. Fawley followed his guide up the broad steps and into the hall.
CHAPTER XXVI
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Fawley found his reception by the Minister who in tho
se days was controlling the destinies of France chilling in the extreme. Monsieur Fleuriot, a man of some presence but with a tired expression and an ominous sagging of flesh under his eyes, rose from his chair as Fawley was ushered in but made no attempt to shake hands. He indicated a chair in cursory fashion.
“It is very good of you to receive me, sir,” Fawley remarked.
“I do so,” was the cold reply, “with the utmost reluctance. I can refuse no request from the representative of a friendly nation, especially as Monsieur Willoughby Johns is a personal friend of mine, and I believe a friend of France. I must confess, however, that it would have appeared to me a more fitting thing to have found you a prisoner in a French fortress than to be receiving you here.”
Fawley smiled deprecatingly.
“I can quite understand your sentiments, sir,” he said. “I am only hoping that my explanation may alter your views.”
“My views as to spies, especially partially successful ones who are working against my country, are unchangeable.”
“But I hope to convince you, sir,” Fawley argued earnestly, “that even during the enterprise of which you have, of course, been made acquainted, I was never an enemy of France. I am not an enemy of any nation. If any man could—to borrow the modern shibboleth—call himself an internationalist, it is I.”
“To avoid a confusion of ideas, sir,” Monsieur Fleuriot said, “I beg that you will proceed with the business which has procured for you this extraordinary letter of introduction. It is the first time in history, I should think, that the leader of a great nation has been asked to receive any one in your position.”
“The world has reached a point,” Fawley remarked, “when the old conditions must fall away. Have I your permission to speak plainly?”
“By all means.”
“Amongst the great nations of the world,” Fawley continued, “France is to-day the most important military power. I do not believe that it is in any way a natural instinct of the French people to crave bloodshed and disruption and all the horrible things that follow in the wake of war. I believe it is because you have a deep and unchangeable conviction that your country stands in peril.”
“You may be right,” Monsieur Fleuriot observed drily. “And then?”
“France, if peace were assured,” Fawley went on, “would take the same place amongst the nations of the world in culture and power as she possesses now in military supremacy. She would be a happier and a freer country without this burden of apprehension.”
“France fears nobody.”
“For a dictum, that is excellent,” Fawley replied; “but in its greatest significance, I deny it. France must fear the reopening of the bloody days of ‘14. She must fear the loss again of millions of her subjects. I want you to believe this if you can, Monsieur Fleuriot. I have been working as a Secret Service agent for the last five years and I have worked with no country’s interests at heart. I have worked solely and simply for peace.”
“You imagine,” Monsieur Fleuriot demanded incredulously, “that you are working in the cause of peace when you steal into the defences of our frontiers and discover our military secrets?”
“I do indeed,” Fawley asserted earnestly. “If you think that I behaved like a traitor to France, what then about Italy? But for my efforts, I firmly believe—and I can bring forward a great deal of evidence in support of what I say—that a treaty would have been signed before now between Italy and Germany, and it would have been signed by the chief of the Monarchist Party in Germany; and on the day after its signature she would have pledged herself to the restoration of the Hohenzollern régime. That treaty now will, I hope, never be signed. Behrling will not sign it if he knows the truth, which I can tell him. Italy will not offer to share in it, if you will adopt my views and do as I beg. Now, if I may, I am going to speak more bluntly.”
“Proceed,” Fleuriot directed.
“France believes herself practically secure,” Fawley continued. “Her spies have been well informed. She knew a year ago that Italy was collecting aeroplanes, not only of her own manufacture but from every nation in the world who had skill enough to build them. Even the Soviet Government of Russia contributed, I believe, something like two hundred.”
Fawley paused but his listener gave no sign. The former continued.
“France knew very well the Italian scheme—to launch an attack of a thousand aeroplanes which would pass the frontier with ease and which would lay Nice, Toulon and Marseilles in ruins, and the greater portion of the French fleet at the bottom of the sea. Meanwhile, the Italian land forces would have joined the German and attacked across the western frontier. I will not say that France has waited for the day with equanimity, but at any rate she has awaited it without despair. I know the reason why, Monsieur Fleuriot, and it is a secret which should have cost me my life a dozen times over. As it is, the fact that my espionage on your frontier was successful may save the world. You see, I know why you are calm. You have there as well as the guns, as well as all the ordinary defences, you have there an example of the greatest scientific invention which the world of destruction has ever known. You know very well that the hellnotter on the Sospel slopes could destroy by itself, without the help of a single gun, every one of those thousand aeroplanes, whether they passed in the clouds directly overhead or a hundred miles out at sea.”
Monsieur Fleuriot had half risen to his feet. He sat down again, breathing quickly. There were little beads of perspiration upon his forehead.
“Mon Dieu!” he muttered.
He dabbed his face with a highly perfumed handkerchief. Fawley paused for a moment.
“I am now going to propose to you, Monsieur Fleuriot,” he said, “the most unusual, the most striking gesture which has ever been made in the history of warfare. I am going to suggest to you that you put France in the place of honour amongst the nations of the world as the country who ensured peace. You may sit quiet, you may destroy this scheme at the cost of thousands of lives, you may send a thrill of horror throughout the world, but you can do something more. You can invite representatives of the Italian Army to witness the demonstration of what your diabolical machine will do in friendly fashion upon your frontier. If you will do that, there will be no war. Italy would never face the destruction of her aeroplanes. She will abandon her enterprise and the treaty between Behrling and Italy will never be signed.”
“It seems to me that you are raving, Major Fawley,” the Minister declared.
“What I am saying is the simplest of common sense, Monsieur Fleuriot,” Fawley answered. “I will tell you why. You have been deceived by your great professor. You believe that you possess the only constructed hellnotter in the world. You are wrong. Germany has one completed at Salzburg. I have seen it with my own eyes.”
“It is incredible,” Fleuriot exclaimed.
“It is the truth,” was the impressive assurance. “And I will tell you this. Von Salzenburg has kept from Italy the secret of their possession. That I shall be able to prove to Berati and his master, if you fall in with my scheme. Germany, if her alliance with Italy were an honourable one, would have disclosed the fact of her possession of this duplicate machine. She is too jealous, or rather Von Salzenburg was too jealous, for them. It was so mighty a secret that they declined to share it with an ally. Mind you, I will not say that Von Salzenburg knew that you too possessed this horrible machine, but wilfully or not wilfully, he was keeping a secret from his ally which would have given her the greatest shock of her history.”
“Put your proposition into plain words,” Monsieur Fleuriot requested.
“I propose that you give me letters to your Colonel Dumesnil commanding the frontier, which will instruct him to make the experiment I suggest, and I further suggest that you address an invitation to the Italian War Office to witness the experiment. Show them what you can do and I guarantee the rest. There will be no war now nor at any time during the near future.”
Fleuriot was silent for at least five minutes
. He was leaning back in his chair. He had the appearance of a man exhausted by some stupendous brain effort.
“The military staff,” he muttered at last, “would scoff at your scheme. War has to come and nothing can keep Europe free from it. Of that we are all convinced. Why not let it come now? There might be worse moments.”
“Monsieur Fleuriot,” Fawley said earnestly, “I come now to more concrete things. I come to information of great value, not to information which I gained through espionage, but from the mouth of your friend, the British Prime Minister, from the mouth of the Ambassador of my own country in London. The one sane and possible scheme for the preservation of peace is already launched. When Italy knows that her aeroplanes are doomed to destruction, that the ally with whom she was about to conclude a treaty is keeping secret information from her, she will follow in the wake of the others. She will elect for peace. When Germany realises this and many other things, she too will give in. There will be a world pact for peace and the guarantors will be America, England, France, Germany and Italy. Each of these countries will elect a dictator or a president or, in the case of the royalist countries, the king, to sign the pact that under no circumstances will they embark upon war in any shape or form. Listen, Monsieur Fleuriot,” Fawley went on, as he noticed the blank expression upon the Minister’s face. “I am not talking of dreams or fancies. The scheme has been carried beyond that world. The pact is actually drawn up and there are signatures already upon it. The President of the United States has signed. King George V has signed, with the Prime Minister of the country—Mr. Willoughby Johns. That document is now in the safe at the British Foreign Office. It awaits the signatures of yourself and Monsieur Flaubert the President, the signatures of the King of Italy and Berati’s Chief, the signatures of Hindenburg and the German dictator. Adopt my scheme, Monsieur Fleuriot, and that pact is going to be the mightiest ruling force in the world. Give Italy that demonstration. Let it be brought to her notice that the country with whom she was seeking an alliance has deceived her and she will sign. Behrling hates war. That was the reason why Berati was favouring the Monarchist Party in Germany. Behrling will sign the pact, so will Hindenburg. Now, Monsieur Fleuriot, will you write to Colonel Dumesnil—will you place the arrangements for carrying out the experiment in my hands? Remember the secret of the mountains of Sospel is no longer a secret. Even though you shoot me before sundown, as I suppose you have the right to do, you will not save that secret.”
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