21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “It was certainly a magnificent way of establishing me,” Dominey admitted.

  “Magnificent, but safest in the long run,” Seaman declared. “If you had returned a poor man, everybody’s hand would have been against you; suspicions, now absolutely unkindled, might have been formed; and, more important, perhaps, than either, you would not have been able to take your place in Society, which is absolutely necessary for the furtherance of our scheme.”

  “Is it not almost time,” Dominey enquired, “that the way was made a little clearer for me?”

  “That would have been my task this morning,” Seaman replied, “but for the news I bring. In passing, however, let me promise you this. You will never be asked to stoop to the crooked ways of the ordinary spy. We want you for a different purpose.”

  “And the news?”

  “What must be the greatest desire in your heart,” Seaman said solemnly, “is to be granted. The Kaiser has expressed a desire to see you, to give you his instructions in person.”

  Dominey stopped short upon the terrace. He withdrew his arm from his companion’s and stared at him blankly.

  “The Kaiser?” he exclaimed. “You mean that I am to go to Germany?”

  “We shall start at once,” Seaman replied. “Personally, I do not consider the proceeding discreet or necessary. It has been decided upon, however, without consulting me.”

  “I consider it suicidal,” Dominey protested. “What explanation can I possibly make for going to Germany, of all countries in the world, before I have had time to settle down here?”

  “That of itself will not be difficult,” his companion pointed out. “Many of the mines in which a share has been bought in your name are being run with German capital. It is easy to imagine that a crisis has arisen in the management of one of them. We require the votes of our fellow shareholders. You need not trouble your head about that. And think of the wonder of it! If only for a single day your sentence of banishment is lifted. You will breathe the air of the Fatherland once more.”

  “It will be wonderful,” Dominey muttered.

  “It will be for you,” Seaman promised, “a breath of the things that are to come. And now, action. How I love action! That time-table, my friend, and your chauffeur.”

  It was arranged that the two men should leave during the morning for Norwich by motor-car and thence to Harwich. Dominey, having changed into travelling clothes, sent a messenger for Mrs. Unthank, who came to him presently in his study. He held out a chair to her, which she declined, however, to take.

  “Mrs. Unthank,” he said, “I should like to know why you have been content to remain my wife’s attendant for the last ten years?”

  Mrs. Unthank was startled by the suddenness of the attack.

  “Lady Dominey has needed me,” she answered, after a moment’s pause.

  “Do you consider,” he asked, “that you have been the best possible companion for her?”

  “She has never been willing to accept any other,” the woman replied.

  “Are you very devoted to my wife?” he enquired.

  Mrs. Unthank, grim and fierce though she was and appeared to be, was obviously disconcerted by Dominey’s line of questions.

  “If I weren’t,” she demanded, “should I have been here all these years?”

  “I scarcely see,” he continued, “what particular claim my wife has had upon you. I understand, moreover, that you are one of those who firmly believe that I killed your son. Is this attendance upon my wife a Christian act, then—the returning of good for evil?”

  “Exactly what do you want to say to me, Sir Everard?” she asked harshly.

  “I wish to say this,” Dominey replied, “that I am determined to bring about my wife’s restoration to health. For that reason I am going to have specialists down here, and above all things to change for a time her place of residence. My own feeling is that she will stand a much better chance of recovery without your attendance.”

  “You would dare to send me away?” the woman demanded.

  “That is my intention,” Dominey confessed. “I have not spoken to Lady Dominey yet, but I hope that very soon my influence over her will be such that she will be content to obey my wishes. I look upon your future from the financial point of view, as my care. I shall settle upon you the sum of three hundred pounds a year.”

  The woman showed her first sign of weakness. She began to shake. There was a curious look of fear in her eyes.

  “I can’t leave this place, Sir Everard,” she cried. “I must stay here!”

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “Lady Dominey couldn’t do without me,” she answered sullenly.

  “That,” he replied, “is for her to decide. Personally, from enquiries I have made, I believe that you have encouraged in her that ridiculous superstition about the ghost of your son. I also believe that you have kept alive in her that spirit of unreasonable hatred which she has felt towards me.”

  “Unreasonable, you call it?” the woman almost shouted. “You, who came home to her with the blood on your hands of the man whom, if only you had kept away, she might one day have loved? Unreasonable, you call it?”

  “I have finished what I had to say, Mrs. Unthank,” Dominey declared. “I am compelled by important business to leave here for two or three days. On my return I shall embark upon the changes with which I have acquainted you. In the meantime,” he added, watching a curious change in the woman’s expression, “I have written this morning to Doctor Harrison, asking him to come up this afternoon and to keep Lady Dominey under his personal observation until my return.”

  She stood quite still, looking at him. Then she came a little nearer and leaned forward, as though studying his face.

  “Eleven years,” she muttered, “do change many men, but I never knew a man made out of a weakling.”

  “I have nothing more to say to you,” Dominey replied, “except to let you know that I am coming to see my wife in the space of a few minutes.”

  The motor-horn was already sounding below when Dominey was admitted to his wife’s apartment. She was dressed in a loose gown of a warm crimson colour, and she had the air of one awaiting his arrival expectantly. The passion of hatred seemed to have passed from her pale face and from the depths of her strangely soft eyes. She held out her hands towards him. Her brows were a little puckered. The disappointment of a child lurked in her manner.

  “You are going away?” she murmured.

  “In a very few moments,” he told her. “I have been waiting to see you for an hour.”

  She made a grimace.

  “It was Mrs. Unthank. I think that she hid my things on purpose. I was so anxious to see you.”

  “I want to talk to you about Mrs. Unthank,” he said. “Should you be very unhappy if I sent her away and found some one younger and kinder to be your companion?”

  The idea seemed to be outside the bounds of her comprehension.

  “Mrs. Unthank would never go,” she declared. “She stays here to listen to the voice. All night long sometimes she waits and listens, and it doesn’t come. Then she hears it, and she is rested.”

  “And you?” he asked.

  “I am afraid,” she confessed. “But then, you see, I am not very strong.”

  “You are not fond of Mrs. Unthank?” he enquired anxiously.

  “I don’t think so,” she answered, in a perplexed tone. “I think I am very much afraid of her. But it is no use, Everard! She would never go away.”

  “When I return,” Dominey said, “we shall see.”

  She took his arm and linked her hands through it.

  “I am so sorry that you are going,” she murmured. “I hope you will soon come back. Will you come back—my husband?”

  Dominey’s nails cut into the flesh of his clenched hands.

  “I will come back within three days,” he promised.

  “Do you know,” she went on confidentially, “something has come into my mind lately. I spoke about it yesterday
, but I did not tell you what it was. You need never be afraid of me any more. I understand.”

  “What do you understand?” he demanded huskily.

  “The knowledge must have come to me,” she went on, dropping her voice a little and whispering almost in his ear, “at the very moment when my dagger rested upon your throat, when I suddenly felt the desire to kill die away. You are very like him sometimes, but you are not Everard. You are not my husband at all. You are another man.”

  Dominey gave a little gasp. They both turned towards the door. Mrs. Unthank was standing there, her gaunt, hard face lit up with a gleam of something which was like triumph, her eyes glittering. Her lips, as though involuntarily, repeated her mistress’ last words.

  “Another man!”

  CHAPTER XIV

  Table of Contents

  There were times during their rapid journey when Seaman, studying his companion, became thoughtful. Dominey seemed, indeed, to have passed beyond the boundaries of any ordinary reserve, to have become like a man immeshed in the toils of a past so absorbing that he moved as though in a dream, speaking only when necessary and comporting himself generally like one to whom all externals have lost significance. As they embarked upon the final stage of their travels, Seaman leaned forward in his seat in the sombrely upholstered, overheated compartment.

  “Your home-coming seems to depress you, Von Ragastein,” he said.

  “It was not my intention,” Dominey replied, “to set foot in Germany again for many years.”

  “The past still bites?”

  “Always.”

  The train sped on through long chains of vineyard-covered hills, out into a stretch of flat country, into forests of pines, in the midst of which were great cleared spaces, where, notwithstanding the closely drawn windows, the resinous odour from the fallen trunks seemed to permeate the compartment. Presently they slackened speed. Seaman glanced at his watch and rose.

  “Prepare yourself, my friend,” he said. “We descend in a few minutes.”

  Dominey glanced out of the window.

  “But where are we?” he enquired.

  “Within five minutes of our destination.”

  “But there is not a house in sight,” Dominey remarked wonderingly.

  “You will be received on board His Majesty’s private train,” Seaman announced. “The Kaiser, with his staff, is making one of his military tours. We are honoured by being permitted to travel back with him as far as the Belgian frontier.”

  They had come to a standstill now. A bearded and uniformed official threw open the door of their compartment, and they stepped on to the narrow wooden platform of a small station which seemed to have been recently built of fresh pine planks. The train, immediately they had alighted, passed on. Their journey was over.

  A brief conversation was carried on between Seaman and the official, during which Dominey took curious note of his surroundings. Around the station, half hidden in some places by the trees and shrubs, was drawn a complete cordon of soldiers, who seemed to have recently disembarked from a military train which stood upon a siding. In the middle of it was a solitary saloon carriage, painted black, with much gold ornamentation, and having emblazoned upon the central panel the royal arms of Germany. Seaman, when he had finished his conversation, took Dominey by the arm and led him across the line towards it. An officer received them at the steps and bowed punctiliously to Dominey, at whom he gazed with much interest.

  “His Majesty will receive you at once,” he announced. “Follow me.”

  They boarded the train and passed along a richly carpeted corridor. Their guide paused and pointed to a small retiring-room, where several men were seated.

  “Herr Seaman will find friends there,” he said. “His Imperial Majesty will receive him for a few minutes later. The Baron Von Ragastein will come this way.”

  Dominey was ushered now into the main saloon. His guide motioned him to remain near the entrance, and, himself advancing a few paces, stood at the salute before a seated figure who was bending over a map, which a stern-faced man in the uniform of a general had unrolled before him. The Kaiser glanced up at the sound of footsteps and whispered something in the general’s ear. The latter clicked his heels together and retired. The Kaiser beckoned Dominey to advance.

  “The Baron Von Ragastein, your Majesty,” the young officer murmured.

  Dominey stood at attention for a moment and bowed a little awkwardly. The Kaiser smiled.

  “It pleases me,” he said, “to see a German officer ill at ease without his uniform. Count, you will leave us. Baron Von Ragastein, be seated.”

  “Sir Everard Dominey, at your service, Majesty,” Dominey replied, as he took the chair to which his august host pointed.

  “Thorough in all things, I see,” the latter observed. “Sit there and be at your ease. Good reports have reached me of your work in Africa.”

  “I did my best to execute your Majesty’s will,” Dominey ventured.

  “You did so well,” the Kaiser pronounced, “that my counsellors were unanimous in advising your withdrawal to what will shortly become the great centre of interest. From the moment of receiving our commands you appear to have displayed initiative. I gather that your personation of this English baronet has been successfully carried through?”

  “Up to the present, your Majesty.”

  “Important though your work in Africa was,” the Kaiser continued, “your present task is a far greater one. I wish to speak to you for these few minutes without reserve. First, though, drink a toast with me.”

  From a mahogany stand at his elbow, the Kaiser drew out a long-necked bottle of Moselle, filled two very beautiful glasses, passed one to his companion and raised the other.

  “To the Fatherland!” he said.

  “To the Fatherland!” Dominey repeated.

  They set down their glasses, empty. The Kaiser threw back the grey military cloak which he was wearing, displaying a long row of medals and decorations. His fingers still toyed with the stem of his wineglass. He seemed for a moment to lose himself in thought. His hard and somewhat cruel mouth was tightly closed; there was a slight frown upon his forehead. He was sitting upright, taking no advantage of the cushioned back of his easy-chair, his eyes a little screwed up, the frown deepening. For quite five minutes there was complete silence. One might have gathered that, turning aside from great matters, he had been devoting himself entirely to the scheme in which Dominey was concerned.

  “Von Ragastein,” he said at last, “I have sent for you to have a few words concerning your habitation in England. I wish you to receive your impressions of your mission from my own lips.”

  “Your Majesty does me great honour,” Dominey murmured.

  “I wish you to consider yourself,” the Kaiser continued, “as entirely removed from the limits, the authority and the duties of my espionage system. From you I look for other things. I desire you to enter into the spirit of your assumed position. As a typical English country gentleman I desire you to study the labour question, the Irish question, the progress of this National Service scheme, and other social movements of which you will receive notice in due time. I desire a list compiled of those writers who, in the Reviews, or by means of fiction, are encouraging the suspicions which I am inclined to fancy England has begun to entertain towards the Fatherland. These things are all on the fringe of your real mission. That, I believe, our admirable friend Seaman has already confided to you. It is to seek the friendship, if possible the intimacy, of Prince Terniloff.”

  The Kaiser paused, and once more his eyes wandered to the landscape which rolled away from the plate-glass windows of the car. They were certainly not the eyes of a dreamer, and yet in those moments they seemed filled with brooding pictures.

  “The Princess has already received me graciously,” Dominey confided.

  “Terniloff is the dove of peace,” the Kaiser pronounced. “He carries the sprig of olive in his mouth. My statesmen and counsellors would have sent to Lond
on an ambassador with sterner qualities. I preferred not. Terniloff is the man to gull fools, because he is a fool himself. He is a fit ambassador for a country which has not the wit to arm itself on land as well as by sea, when it sees a nation, mightier, more cultured, more splendidly led than its own, creeping closer every day.”

  “The English appear to put their whole trust in their navy, your Majesty,” Dominey observed tentatively.

  The eyes of his companion flashed. His lips curled contemptuously.

  “Fools!” he exclaimed. “Of what use will their navy be when my sword is once drawn, when I hold the coast towns of Calais and Boulogne, when my cannon command the Straits of Dover! The days of insular nations are passed, passed as surely as the days of England’s arrogant supremacy upon the seas.”

  The Kaiser refilled his glass and Dominey’s.

  “In some months’ time, Von Ragastein,” he continued, “you will understand why you have been enjoined to become the friend and companion of Terniloff. You will understand your mission a little more clearly than you do now. Its exact nature waits upon developments. You can at all times trust Seaman.”

  Dominey bowed and remained silent. His companion continued after another brief spell of silent brooding.

  “Von Ragastein,” he said, “my decree of banishment against you was a just one. The morals of my people are as sacred to me as my oath to win for them a mightier empire. You first of all betrayed the wife of one of the most influential noblemen of a State allied to my own, and then, in the duel that followed, you slew him.”

  “It was an accident, your Majesty,” Dominey pleaded. “I had no intention of even wounding the Prince.”

  The Kaiser frowned. All manner of excuses were loathsome to him.

  “The accident should have happened the other way,” he rejoined sharply. “I should have lost a valuable servant, but it was your life which was forfeit, and not his. Still, they tell me that your work in Africa was well and thoroughly done. I give you this one great chance of rehabilitation. If your work in England commends itself to me, the sentence of exile under which you suffer shall be rescinded.”