The Minister rose from his place. He walked to the window and looked out for a few minutes across the gardens. Then he came back and resumed his seat. With trembling fingers he lit a cigarette. He was a man of courteous habits but he offered no invitation to his guest.
“Major Fawley,” he confided, “for the last half hour I have not been quite sure whether I have been listening to a madman or not. All that you have told me is possible, of course. It is nevertheless incredible.”
Fawley smiled.
“Naturally,” he said, “you require some verification of my word. The English Ambassador, Lord Rollins, is waiting to hear from you. He will tell you that he has seen the signatures of King George V and Willoughby Johns on this pact, also the signature of the President of the United States. It is a simple document. There will be a secondary one of conditions but nothing will alter the vital principle. The five powerful nations of the world swear each one that whatever provocation they receive, there shall be no war. It is enough.”
“Lord Rollins, you said? The English Ambassador?” Fleuriot exclaimed.
“He is spending the afternoon at home, in case you care to send for him.”
“You have at least given me an issue,” the Minister cried out in relief. “I will receive Lord Rollins at once. There shall be a Cabinet Meeting following his visit. If yours has been an honest enterprise, Major Fawley, I consent to your scheme. If I find that you are still playing the game of the super-Secret Service man, you will be shot, as you say, before sundown, and if your Ambassador went down on his knees to save you he would do so in vain.”
“Excellent,” Fawley agreed. “Place me under arrest if you like. I am content.”
Monsieur Fleuriot touched his bell.
“I shall not order your arrest, Major Fawley, but I shall place you in security,” he said. “Meanwhile, I shall send for Lord Rollins.”
The Minister held whispered conference with his secretary, who had answered the bell. The latter turned to Fawley.
“If Monsieur will be so kind as to come to my room,” he begged.
At the door Fawley looked back. Monsieur Fleuriot had still the appearance of a man stunned. In a way, however, there was a change in his features, a light upon his face. If this thing should be true, it would be he who would lead France into the new world!
CHAPTER XXVII
Table of Contents
Fawley brought his Lancia slowly to a standstill at the top of the Sospel Pass. He was surrounded now by the white-capped mountains of the Lesser Alps and, though the day had been warm enough, the evening breeze brought with it a cold tang from the snows. He paused to light a cigarette. The work of mining and tunnelling the mountain range seemed to have progressed even since his last visit. There was a new road cut in the direction of headquarters. Within half a mile of him, around the shoulder of the hill, was the subterranean passage from which he had had so narrow an escape. Yet everywhere there seemed to be a curious stillness. There was no sound anywhere of human life or activities. Underneath his feet, almost underneath the whole range of hills around which the road wound, was another world—an active world bristling with the great vehicles of destruction. From where he sat he could see the ravine down which he had flung himself only a month or so ago. He could recall the sound of the rifle bullets spitting against the rocks, the muttering of the Chasseurs Alpins cursing the darkness. He had escaped where others with as much experience as he had paid with their lives for seeking to learn the secrets of this fortress. Would the luck hold, he wondered…
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! The sound of men marching close at hand. Fawley, suddenly alert, sat up in his place. They were already making their way around the corner, a little company of weary men with a handful of tired mules. They were almost passing him when the officer who was marching in the middle of the road came to a sudden standstill. He looked incredulously at Fawley. It was the same officer who had found him wandering in the roads and taken him to the Colonel! The meeting was one of mutual amazement. The young lieutenant of the Chasseurs Alpins, however, was this time a very resolute person. He snapped out his orders. In a very few seconds Fawley found himself with a soldier standing on each footboard and another with pointed rifle facing the car.
“What’s the trouble?” Fawley asked.
“You are under arrest,” the officer replied. “I do not think I could possibly bring in a more welcome prisoner. Start your car, if you please, take the turn to the right and stop at headquarters. You heard my orders to the men. They will shoot unless you obey precisely.”
Fawley made no comment. He started the engine and drove slowly along in the direction indicated. When he arrived at the white-plastered house from which was flying the French flag, he descended and was escorted, the centre of a strong bodyguard, into the bare apartment which he had visited once before. The same Commandant was seated at his table with a similar pile of despatches before him and an orderly on either side. This time, however, Fawley’s reception was different. The Colonel stared at him first in blank astonishment, then a curious glitter of almost malicious gratification flashed in his eyes.
“Le bon Dieu!” he exclaimed. “It is the same man!”
Fawley saluted with a smile.
“It is quite true. I was here a month or so ago, Colonel,” he reminded him. “Major Fawley, late of the American Army.”
The Colonel’s fingers caressed his moustache.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I remember you. Major Fawley of the American Army. Excellent! You came, I think, to buy the Sospel Golf Links.”
“Exactly,” Fawley admitted. “I have almost made up my mind to sacrifice my deposit, however. Your work up here is too threatening. I can see that Sospel might become a strategic point if a rapid advance were contemplated.”
The Colonel murmured softly to himself. His eyes travelled past Fawley to the door.
“Close the door,” he ordered. “See that it is securely fastened. Search the prisoner for arms.”
“Arms,” Fawley protested. “Why should I carry arms?”
“The man is a blagueur,” the Colonel said harshly. “Search him for arms and papers.”
Fawley felt himself pinioned from behind. He yielded without any attempt at resistance. A cigarette case, a small revolver and a long official-looking envelope were produced and laid upon the table.
“A revolver,” Fawley argued, “is almost a necessity in this country. I motor a great deal at night. I have never used it, but one must threaten if a bandit accosts one.”
The Colonel pushed the weapon impatiently on one side, took up the envelope, and if his astonishment at seeing Fawley was great, his astonishment as he studied the envelope was certainly greater. He turned it over in his hand time after time. It bore the well known official seal of the Quai d’Orsay and it was addressed to himself!
Colonel Dumesnil By favour of Major Martin Fawley
“A communication for you,” Fawley explained courteously. “I was on my way to deliver it.”
“Perhaps!” the Colonel exclaimed contemptuously. “It is a likely story, that! This is one more of your artifices, I make no doubt. Lieutenant Vigny, detail a squad of men in the courtyard with loaded rifles. We do not let a spy slip through our hands twice, Major Fawley.”
“I think,” the latter suggested, “you had better open that envelope.”
“I shall do so,” the Colonel assured him, “but this time you have been too clever. I shall take nothing for granted. Before I read, I shall be convinced that what I read is forgery.”
“Forgeries in a code so secret as the French ‘B’ military code do not exist,” Fawley declared. “I received that envelope from Marshal Hugot himself three days ago.”
“How do you know that it is in the French military code?” the Colonel demanded.
“The Minister for War, Field Marshal Hugot, himself told me so,” Fawley explained. “There was no need for me to open the letter. I know exactly what it contains.”
“
You have dared to present yourself at the Quai d’Orsay?” the Colonel gasped.
“I had a very pleasant hour there on Monday,” was the prompt reply.
“If I have my will,” the Colonel said, as he broke the seal, “you will have a far less pleasant few minutes shortly, looking down the barrels of my men’s rifles! You may fool a French soldier once, Major Fawley. It is not an easy thing to do the second time.”
The Colonel slit open the long envelope and drew out a closely written sheet of paper. He frowned as he stared at it. Without a doubt it was a communication addressed in the most secret of all codes, a code known only to the inner circle of the French military council.
“Fetch me Manual Number 17 from the safe,” he directed one of the orderlies.
The man obeyed. The Colonel opened the volume and, producing a fresh sheet of paper, carefully commenced his task of transcribing. His occupation lasted for something like twenty minutes. When he had finished, he read through the decoded letter word for word, tapping each with his pencil. He had the appearance of a man suffering from shock.
“It is impossible,” he muttered to himself. The palm of one hand rested on the decoded message, the palm of the other on the message itself. He leaned forward in his chair. His eyes seemed to be boring into Fawley’s.
“When did you receive this communication?” he demanded.
“Monday at eight o’clock from the hands of Field Marshal Hugot himself.”
“It is impossible,” the Colonel declared. “Marshal Hugot is at Geneva.”
“He may be now,” Fawley answered indifferently. “He flew back from Geneva to Paris on Sunday. I had an interview with him at midnight. He placed this communication in my hands to be brought to you.”
“You know what is written here?”
“Absolutely,” Fawley assured him. “The suggestion itself came from me. I will admit,” he went on thoughtfully, “that my reception at the Quai d’Orsay, in the first instance, was not everything I could have wished. That perhaps is natural. There were certain things against me, including your own very bitter report of my innocent activities, Colonel. But, you see, I had credentials. I was able to impress them upon the Staff.”
The Colonel breathed heavily several times. Then he looked up again.
“I decline,” he decided, “even in the face of such evidence, to accept this as genuine.”
“Then you are a very obstinate person,” Fawley replied. “You have plenty of ways of securing verification, but I suggest that you use the speediest. The matter referred to in that communication is one that brooks of no delay.”
The Colonel turned towards his senior orderly.
“Pierre,” he directed, “call up the department on our private long-distance wire. Say that I must speak to General du Vivier himself.”
The man saluted and hurried out. The Colonel leaned back in his chair.
“Your story will be put to the proof,” he said coldly.
“A reasonable precaution,” Fawley murmured. “May I, however, be allowed to sit down and more especially to smoke?”
The Colonel bit his lips.
“You may sit down in that chair facing the barred window,” he enjoined, “and you may watch those twelve men standing at attention. You know what their orders will be in the event of there being the slightest hitch in these communications. Orderly, take these cigarettes to the prisoner.”
“Prisoner,” Fawley repeated reproachfully, as he accepted the case and lit a cigarette. “Well, prisoner if you like,” he added. “Liberty will be all the more desirable.”
“It is my personal wish,” the Colonel acknowledged, “that that liberty never comes. I am not a cruel man but I should stand at the window there and watch your execution with the utmost satisfaction. If this letter is genuine, it will simply prove to me that you are something of a necromancer in your line. I shall still believe that you have deceived my chiefs as you have deceived us.”
“You may believe that, Colonel,” Fawley said quietly, “but you will be wrong.”
There was a long silence. The Colonel continued his task of signing papers and the sound of the scratching of his pen was almost the only sound in the room. The window itself commanded a view of the dusty courtyard and the sun flashed upon the short-barrelled rifles of the men waiting to perform their task. It was a silent spot, this, amongst the mountains. If engineering works were still being carried on in the vicinity, the labours of the day were evidently at an end. From somewhere in the heart of the woods came the faintly musical humming of a saw at work amongst the pine logs, and from an incredible distance came every now and then the faint wailing of a siren in the midst of a stretch of misty sea. Fawley smoked on composedly. Only once he indulged in a grimace. He remembered the story of a fellow worker who, after bringing off many successful coups, was eventually shot for being discovered with absolutely genuine papers. Those things are in the day’s march. It might come to him as it had come to others. Fawley, in moments of crisis, had contemplated often before the problem of sudden extermination. This time it was mixed with a new emotion. He found himself remembering Elida!
An orderly hurried in. He whispered a word in the Colonel’s ear. The latter left his place and entered the little cabinet at the far end of the room. He remained inside fully ten minutes. One heard occasionally the threads of a broken conversation mingled with the somewhat heated amenities between the Colonel and the local authorities. In the end, the Colonel emerged from the telephone booth and resumed his seat behind his desk without speech. He had the air of a man who has received a sudden and unexpected blow. He had lost his dignity, his poise, his military flair. He was just a middle-aged, tired old gentleman who had set himself to face an unsatisfactory problem.
“Do I take off my collar,” Fawley asked, “and submit myself to the amiable ministrations of your picturesque bandits outside, or are you by chance convinced that my mission to you is a genuine one?”
The Colonel closed his eyes for a moment as though in pain.
“I am prepared to admit the genuineness of your mission, Major Fawley,” he said. “Why my superiors at the War Office are playing this extraordinary game, I do not know. I imagine that military logic has become subservient to political intrigue…What date do you propose for this extraordinary entertainment?”
“Sunday next. Four days from to-day,” Fawley answered briskly. “Of course, before that time I have an almost impossible task to perform, but if I should succeed—four days from to-day. You will do me the favour perhaps to look at this small sketch. You will see I have marked in pencil three crosses just where I should think I might install our friends the enemy.”
The Colonel studied the plan. He referred to a hand-drawn map and turned back again to the plan. He nodded his head slowly in unconvinced but portentous fashion.
“With every moment of our intercourse,” he said coldly, “you impress me the more, Major Fawley, with your exceptional ability as a—do we call it spy or Secret Service star? I leave it to you to choose. Be there at that spot at the time and hour appointed, and France, with your assistance, shall betray herself.”
Fawley rose to his feet.
“I gather that I am a free man?” he asked.
“You are a free man,” the Colonel answered calmly. “I do not like you. I do not trust you. I hate these intermeshed political and military eruptions which in a single second destroy the work of years. In letting you go free, I submit to authority, but if you care for a warning, take it. You are a self-acknowledged spy. You will be watched from the moment you leave my doors and if the time should come when you make that little slip which they say all men of your profession make sooner or later, I pray that I may be the one to benefit.”
Fawley sighed as he drew himself up and stood with his hand upon the door handle.
“I really do not know, Colonel,” he expostulated, “why you dislike me so much. I need not have worked at all. I have chosen to work in the greatest cause the world h
as ever known—the great cause of peace. I have already risked my life half a dozen times. Once more makes no difference. Perhaps when you have settled down on your estates, with your children and grandchildren, you will not regard the man who works behind the scenes quite so venomously…By the by, if I must submit to perpetual escort, may I beg that you will give me two of your lightest guards? The two who mounted my footboard coming up would break the back axle of my car before we reached Sospel.”
The Colonel looked coldly at his departing guest.
“You need have no fear, Major Fawley,” he said. “You are no longer a prisoner. My motor-bicycle scouts will trace you from the moment you leave to wherever you go and telephone to me their report. I shall get in touch at once with the Chef de la Sûreté of the district. Things may happen or they may not.”
Fawley drew a deep breath of the pine-scented air as he stood outside, lingered for a moment and stepped unhindered into his car. This was the first stage of his desperate mission safely accomplished. Elida had warned him almost passionately that it was the second which would prove most difficult.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Table of Contents
Once more Fawley crossed that huge spacious apartment, at the far end of which Berati sat enthroned behind his low desk, a grim and motionless figure. The chair on his left-hand side was vacant. There was no sign anywhere of Patoni.
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