“Will you be so kind as to telephone to Newcastle and see if he went there?”
“But I don’t know for certain where he was going in Newcastle. Armstrong’s was one place, I believe.”
“I think so,” Cheshire observed. “And there’s a department of Armstrong’s which admit that they have had dealings with Mr. Florestan on your behalf. All the same, they have seen nothing of him lately.”
The young man meditated for a moment.
“He must have left the car somewhere and it was stolen.”
“That is a possibility,” Cheshire admitted. “But what I am coming to is this. Mr. Florestan has been engaged in some large transactions with a department of the Admiralty. We do not wish the limelight turned upon him too fully. We should like you to go back to your office and try to find out by the correspondence there or the information of any of your staff where Mr. Florestan is likely to be. We don’t want a fuss made about his disappearance, if he has disappeared, but we want Horace Florestan.”
For the first time, Shipman, having recovered from the shock of his astonishment, seemed to be taking the situation seriously.
“If anything has happened to Florestan,” he declared, “I don’t know how on earth we shall carry on. I always told old Brown that we left too much in his hands.”
“You go back,” Cheshire enjoined, “and make every possible enquiry at your place, then send me a report. Let me have it before three o’clock this afternoon.”
The young man rose to his feet and picked up his hat.
“I’ll do what I can about it,” he promised, “but as to that car being Florestan’s and the man having been shot in it—that’s all rubbish, you know. It simply could not have happened.”
“It seems improbable, doesn’t it?” Cheshire remarked, with his finger on the bell.
Shipman hesitated for a moment on his way to the door. He returned a few paces.
“Say, who was the person in the car?” he asked curiously.
“There is no certainty about that, but it’s just possible, from what I have heard, that he might have been a very large customer of your firm’s.”
The other grinned as though much relieved.
“One thing I can tell you about Florestan,” he said as he turned to follow the Orderly from the room, “he was not the man to go about the world shooting our customers! Good morning, gentlemen.”
CHAPTER XV
Table of Contents
Luncheon that morning in a small private room of the St. George’s Club had rather a grim commencement for the Deputy Commissioner and Cheshire. The former was speaking through an extension to the telephone which had been added for his convenience during the last few weeks, when his friend arrived. He laid down the receiver and turned to greet Cheshire as he entered with a somewhat sombre expression.
“Meldicott is for it, I’m afraid,” he said.
Cheshire glanced at the clock.
“Already?”
“Yes. They decided to operate at midday. The bullet was one of those foul things they were using in Chicago before the clean-up. Not much hope for anyone with that in his body for even a few hours. They have had to telephone for Lady Meldicott and his mother. The Press have the whole story now, of course. No use trying to keep it back. The reporters are like a lot of ravening wolves down at the hospital.”
“Any news of Florestan?” Cheshire asked, and there was a cold, brilliant light in his clear eyes, a sudden savage twitch of his sensitive mouth—he was a killer at that moment.
“Not a trace,” Melville replied. “Here’s something else for you, though. A man who declared that he drove the car to the hospital gave himself up at Scotland Yard this morning. I cross-examined him myself for half an hour and I believe he is telling the truth.”
“Sure it wasn’t Florestan himself?” Cheshire demanded incredulously.
“Absolutely,” Sir Herbert continued with conviction. “This fellow is dark-complexioned, a head shorter and half Florestan’s age. His name is Jesson and he told his story well enough. He was in the park with his girl and he saw a car pull up by the kerb and a man who had been driving descend and disappear almost at once. It was a dark evening, as you know, and raining, and this fellow Jesson could not even attempt to give any description of the man. Anyhow, he thought it was queer and he and the girl hung round for a moment or two. The driver didn’t come back and Jesson, looking at the man in the front seat, saw at once that he was in a state of collapse. There was no policeman about and Jesson did perhaps what you can understand a man doing. He was a chauffeur out of work. He left his girl, got into the car and drove it to the hospital. It was not half a mile away. At the last minute he came to the conclusion that the man was dead and he lost his nerve. He had been in trouble not so long ago—two years for having half-killed a man in a fight—and he suddenly got the funks. He slipped out of the car, pressed the bell of the hospital, turned round and disappeared.”
“Do you believe him?” Cheshire asked.
“I do,” was the confident reply. “So would you, if you talked to him. He brought the girl with him. She is as respectable as they make ’em, had stuck to him all the time he was in prison and was trying to help him get a job now. Meldicott had plenty of money on him and they found a lot of loose notes in his overcoat pocket, even. Jesson apparently touched nothing. He admits he hoped to get a good tip for what he had done but he just lost his courage. He thought that previous conviction against him would carry such weight that no one would believe his word. When the paper came out this morning and hinted that the man who had been a passenger in the car was dying, and that he was an important personage, the girl persuaded him to go to Scotland Yard and own up.”
The telephone bell rang. Melville lifted the receiver, listened and set it down with a brief remark.
“All over,” he told Cheshire. “Meldicott died without recovering consciousness.”
They sat down at the table but neither of them had any appetite for lunch.
“What about this firm that Florestan worked for?” Melville asked.
“Wealthy, old-established, been dealing in metals and everything to do with guns, battleships and planes for twenty years. The late managing director founded the foreign business but his son and grandson, who are now directors, are duds; as honest as the day, but everything seems to have been left to this man Florestan. He has refused a directorship but they give him large bonuses at the end of each year and he works the business just as he likes. He has lived ostensibly in that poky little house in Kensington, where I went to see him, but he has also a flat on the Hotel side of the Milan. Just now it seems to be closed up. Melville,” Cheshire concluded sternly, “you have got to find that man.”
“We shall find him all right,” Melville declared. “Whether we shall be able to hold him or not, though, I cannot tell you, unless you want to bring your own little affair into it and that I imagine you would never do. The only report we have is that a man who might have answered to his description left in a private plane from Heston at daybreak this morning. The plane was licenced in the name Rosenthal. The man had his own pilot who left with the plane. He always went in for night journeys and no one seems to know much about him. We shall have a fuller report soon but it does not look very hopeful. He may be at the other end of Europe by this time.”
“What have you done with Jesson?” Cheshire asked.
“We detained him at Scotland Yard. He is perfectly willing and we are on the safe side, anyhow. I warn you, though, I am not often wrong and I believe his story.”
“Sounds only too probable,” Cheshire admitted.
“Brownlow from the Foreign Office is lunching upstairs,” Melville went on. “I talked to him for a minute or two. Things seem as bad as possible. Both our friends are still doing everything they can to delay matters. They mean war, you know, Cheshire. There’s no doubt about that, and we are not ready.”
“No more are they,” the other rejoined. “Well, we will leave that to the politic
ians, but I’ll tell you this. If ever this thing blows over or if war does come, nothing in the world would induce me to have anything to do with my present branch of the Service again. I don’t mind hardships and I don’t mind taking risks, but this is simply hell. You are surrounded all the time by dangers you can’t cope with, people you can’t get at. A man needs a peculiar sort of mentality, Melville, to do our work.”
“And you’re damned good at it, so don’t grouse,” the Deputy Commissioner pronounced. “You know already everything there is to be known about fighting a ship, and peace-time work would be a cold job for you. You frighten me, Cheshire, now and then,” he went on, moving to the sideboard and helping himself to one of the cold dishes, “but I believe in your present plans. I believe if you can only succeed in your last effort and get the truth to these fellows at the psychological moment, they will climb down at once and if the other thing happens, twenty-four hours after the first shot has been fired, when they find that there is not a single thing as they expected to find it, they will lose their nerve.”
“Hope so,” Cheshire said. “Anyway, the scheme has worked up till now, as one can tell from their attitude, and from some of the dispositions they have made.”
The telephone bell rang again. Sir Herbert listened for a moment or two, interposing some brief ejaculations of a somewhat severe character, and rang off.
“You won’t like this, Cheshire,” he cried as he finished the conversation. “I will send Partridge down and have him make a report. Seems to me like gross carelessness. That man you left in the Police Station last night has escaped.”
“The devil! How was that?”
“Well, the Inspector has been explaining that they were treating him a little leniently because, of course, they had no right to hold him without bringing him up for remand. The warder took him some dinner, the fellow was waiting for him behind the door, knocked him senseless and was out of the place, into the back and over the wall like a streak. I am terribly sorry.”
“Not your fault, old chap, but it’s bad luck all the same,” Cheshire observed. “You see, he is the only one who must have known that that servant girl saved my life and turned me loose again. If she’s gone back to her own home or any haunts where she is likely to be recognised, I am afraid she’ll pay for it.”
“She will suffer in a good cause, anyway,” the Deputy Commissioner remarked.
“Yes, but I don’t want her to suffer.”
“Always the ladies’ man,” Melville smiled.
“Shut up!” Cheshire said calmly. “She was a plain, unwashed, ill-spoken, typical low-class domestic servant. All the same, she saved my life and she knew she was running a bit of a risk. You’ve got to find her for me.”
“With your eloquent description it ought to be easy,” was the somewhat sarcastic reply.
“I should send Partridge down to reprimand the officials at the Police Station,” Cheshire suggested thoughtfully, “and then put one or two of your best men who know that locality on to the job of finding her. She will need protection.”
“I’ll do exactly what you say, Cheshire,” the other promised, “but so far as your man Florestan is concerned I should think he is well out of the country by now.”
“I don’t think so,” the Admiral rejoined, “and if he is he’s as likely as not to be back again to-morrow. His job is not finished yet, and he’s no quitter. He has made two mistakes—leaving Meldicott alive, for one. But knowing about the ammunition he was using I suppose he felt quite safe. He ought not to have left me with any life in my old hulk, though.”
“Of course you ought not to take on these fancy jobs yourself,” the Deputy Commissioner observed. “It’s just as bad as though I went out to a coiners’ den or a murderers’ social club to start an investigation. You have the whole of the XYZ staff to fall back on.”
“I was too damned curious,” Cheshire admitted. “Never mind. I paid for it. The thing I am most sorry about is the girl.”
“Can’t think what she wanted to bolt from the taxicab for,” Melville meditated.
“Neither can I. Anyhow, it’s bad enough to owe your life to a woman without probably having her done in afterwards for saving you. If you let them get that girl, Melville—”
“No threats, my friend,” the other interrupted. “You can’t threaten a policeman. It’s not done.”
There was a loud yet respectful tapping at the door. The head waiter of the club presented himself. The two men looked at him curiously.
“I offer you my apologies, gentlemen,” he said gravely. “I know that it is forbidden to interrupt you but I hope you will excuse me when I tell you the cause.”
“Well?” Cheshire queried.
“The Princess Pelucchi has just left her husband here, sir. He has gone into the luncheon room. She asked whether you were in the club. I—forgive me—replied in the affirmative.”
“A damn’ silly thing to do,” Cheshire said. “You know very well that neither the Deputy Commissioner nor myself are ever in the club when we are wanted. Go on.”
“The Princess is in the car outside, sir. She begged that you would spare her one moment.”
Cheshire rose to his feet.
“The mischief’s done, I’m afraid, Melville,” he observed. “I don’t suppose it makes much difference. I decline to go into the street, though. There are half a dozen newspaper men hanging round. You must show Her Highness into the Strangers’ Room and see that no one else enters.”
“Very good, sir.”
The man departed, returning in a minute or two more solemn than ever.
“Her Highness is in the Strangers’ Room, sir,” he announced. “I have left one of the waiters outside with orders that the room is not to be used.”
Cheshire nodded.
“I’ll be back in a few moments,” he told Melville.
Sabine was looking very lovely, as usual, but there was a shadow lurking in her eyes and her smile was a little anxious. It was a smile which Cheshire did not return. He bent over her fingers with a cold salute and stood waiting.
“You are angry with me, Guy,” she said. “I should not have come here.”
“It is not wise,” he told her. “Just now, things are very difficult. Every movement of every person of importance is being watched.”
“I did not realise that,” she admitted. “I came to speak to you because Elida has told me about to-night. I am afraid for Elida, Guy.”
“I don’t think she will come to any harm.”
“Nevertheless, it is not a good thing that she should go to a place like Machinka’s and meet you there alone on this terrible secret business. I came to pray you to take her out into the country somewhere or meet her as privately as you have done before at Regent’s Park. Anywhere, sooner than Machinka’s.”
Cheshire shook his head.
“There are reasons,” he insisted, “why to-night Machinka’s is necessary.”
“You may be spied upon there,” she warned him.
He looked at her very steadily.
“I hope so.”
“You hope so?” she repeated, considering his words. “What is it that you have in your mind, Guy?”
“It would be no longer worth while keeping in my mind if I disclosed it to you,” he answered.
“Is that not unkind?”
“You are a Pelucchi,” he reminded her.
“I was also once your very dear friend,” she said sadly. “How you have changed, Guy. How cold and stern you have become. Is there anything human left in you?”
“Temporarily,” he told her, “I have ceased to exist as a human being. I am like the modern armies—I am not a human unit. I am mechanised.”
“If I could only understand a little,” she sighed. “I know how terrible it was that I should have involved myself in these affairs with Godfrey Ryson but is it not almost as bad if Elida has secret discussions with you?”
“Worse,” he replied. “Much worse.”
“
Then why do you urge her to do what she hates?”
“Because individuals count for nothing any longer. I am working only for a cause.”
She shivered as she wrapped her sables round her.
“I am sorry I came,” she confessed. “I cannot imagine why this blight has fallen upon the earth. As you say, we are no longer human beings. War itself could scarcely be worse.”
He pondered over her words.
“War brings misery to millions,” he pointed out. “The struggle to avert war is so gigantic that it is of little consequence if it freezes the humanity out of a handful or so of us.”
“What is there that I can do?” she pleaded.
He considered that also.
“Yours is the hardest task,” he admitted. “Do nothing. You will save your country from ruin that way, no other, for believe me, Sabine, that vainglorious egoist who has lost his sense of proportion and everything except his gift of rhetoric is better left alone. If we stop the war we shall save your country.”
“Your methods,” she ventured, “of saving the world from war are a little cryptic.”
“I am not upon my defence,” he answered.
He touched the bell. She leaned towards him once more.
“Elida is to go?” she asked with a little break in her voice.
The door was opened. The hall porter was in the background.
“Show Her Highness to her car,” Cheshire directed. “Princess, a rivederci.”
CHAPTER XVI
Table of Contents
Elida came into the private salon of Machinka’s Restaurant that evening with a laugh upon her lips and a glow of excitement in her beautiful eyes. She threw aside the black scarf which she had been wearing almost like a yashmak over her hair, and held out both her hands to Cheshire. He took them, he even raised them to his lips, but she felt the chill of his presence.
“Guy, dear,” she protested, “have I come once more to a tragic feast? Can we not pretend that we are playing a game?”
“Should we be better off?” he asked.
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