“That’s so,” the other admitted, “but that’s not our fault. We don’t come in there. Our friends have their own steamships, eleven of them, bought for the job.”
“Lost two out of three already, haven’t they?” Lavendale remarked.
“Say, you seem some wise, young man,” Mr. Weald said pleasantly. “However, I got the note from the boss. What can we do for you?”
“A very small thing,” Lavendale replied. “I understand that Baron Ossendorf is coming here to sign that contract at twelve o’clock.”
“You’re dead right, sir,” Mr. Weald admitted, “and there’s a magnum of the best standing there in the ice, waiting for the psychological moment.”
“Mind my being present and asking him one question—just one?” Lavendale inquired.
“We ain’t likely to object to anything you want to do, young fellow,” Mr. Weald assured him. “Ed Jenkins there—he’s secretary of the company—and I have got no crooked ideas about this business. We are going to bring a few million dollars into our own pockets but we are going to do it on the straight. What our Ambassador over here says, goes, and his note asks us to take you into this.”
There was a knock at the door. Ossendorf was announced and promptly entered. He held out a hand each to Weald and Jenkins. Then he glanced inquiringly at Lavendale.
“This is a young friend of ours from the American Embassy,” Mr. Weald explained. “Mr. Ambrose Lavendale—Baron Ossendorf. He’s a kind of witness that all’s right and above board.”
Baron Ossendorf bowed and held out his long, elegantly shaped hand.
“I am delighted, Mr. Lavendale,” he said, “delighted that you should be a participator in our little business this morning. Between Russia and America there have always been the most cordial sentiments of friendship. It is a pleasure to us to think that we are able, at these terrible times, to be of service to one another. You have the contract, Mr. Weald? Ah!” he added, glancing at it through his eyeglass, “I see that this is the draft which I have already perused. Nothing remains, then, but for me to sign it.”
He dipped his pen in the ink, stooped down, and there was a moment’s silence whilst his pen spluttered across the paper. Mr. Weald began to cut the strings of the magnum of champagne.
“Just one moment,” Lavendale interposed. “There is a little condition, Baron, which it is not proposed to put officially into the agreement, a very small matter, but may I suggest it to you?”
Ossendorf turned his head. His eyes had narrowed a little. “By all means, sir.”
“The contract,” Lavendale continued slowly, “is for the whole production of the Weald Plant for six months, with option of continuance until the end of the war. Shipments are to be made weekly by steamers whose names are given there, steamers practically acquired by the Russian Government.”
“You are well informed, my young friend,” Ossendorf admitted quietly.
“It has been suggested,” Lavendale said, speaking slowly and looking Ossendorf in the face, “that you should change the wireless operator on all those vessels for a person approved by the British Government.”
There was a moment’s deep silence. Mr. Weald had paused with his knife already pressed against the last string of the bottle. Jenkins was standing with his mouth open, a little dazed. Ossendorf shrank back as though he had received a blow. It was obvious that he retained his composure with an effort.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
“Simply this,” Lavendale replied firmly. “Already the Iris and the Southern Star, with enough ammunition on board to have supplied an army, have gone to the bottom. I mean, sir, that every one of those remaining nine boats, on which is to be packed the whole production of the greatest ammunition plant in America, is doomed to go to the bottom.”
Two great drops of sweat had broken out on Ossendorf’s forehead. His face seemed suddenly to have grown thinner. His mouth was open. He glared at Lavendale, but he was utterly incapable of speech. The latter turned to Weald.
“Mr. Weald,” he said, “this contract for your entire output can be signed within twenty-four hours, either by a representative of Russia other than Baron Ossendorf, or by the secretary of the British Munition Board. This man Ossendorf is a paid traitor—the Judas of the war.”
Mr. Weald was incapable of coherent speech.
“You mean,” Jenkins faltered, “that he is in the pay of Germany?”
“Ask him!” Lavendale suggested scornfully.
Ossendorf seemed to wither up. He staggered to his feet and groped to the door. Suddenly something flashed in his hands, clasped tightly between them. There was a loud report; the room seemed filled with smoke. They all three looked in a dazed manner at the figure stretched upon the carpet, face downwards, the shoulders still twitching slightly. Lavendale stood with his finger upon the bell.
“Sorry to have interfered, Mr. Weald,” he said, “but your stuff’s wanted somewhere else, not at the bottom of the sea.”
Ossendorf’s body was carried away. It was very well understood that the matter was to be hushed up. Lavendale lingered with Mr. Weald, who was walking restlessly about the room, still scarcely able to realise what had happened.
“Poor devil!” he kept on muttering. “Poor devil!”
Lavendale laid his hand firmly upon his compatriot’s shoulder.
“Look here, Mr. Weald,” he said, “there are good and bad of every nation— Germans, Americans, English, or French. This man was outside the pale. He was a black and dastardly traitor, the Pariah of humanity, he trafficked with the lives of human beings, he was a murderer for gold. If anything, his end was too merciful.”
Mr. Weald nodded reflectively. Lavendale’s words were convincing. His eyes wandered towards the champagne bottle upon the sideboard. He was feeling the strain.
“In that case,” he murmured, “perhaps—”
4. GENERAL MATRAVERS REPAYS
Table of Contents
MADEMOISELLE Suzanne de Freyne was travelling back to England in hot haste. On the French train she received courtesies rarely extended in these days to any solitary passenger, and at Boulogne she was hurried from the gangway of the steamer back on to the dock and into an evil-looking, four-funnelled British destroyer. Almost as she set foot on board, they moved away from the landing-stage. An officer came forward to meet her and saluted. ‘The Captain’s cabin is at your disposal, Miss de Freyne,’ he announced. ‘We have an invalided General on board, but we’ve tucked him up in a bunk. Afraid we shall give you a bit of a shaking up.’
‘I am a very good sailor,’ Suzanne assured him. ‘It is delightful that I am able to come across with you. Time counts for so much, these days.’
‘We haven’t any stewardess,’ the young officer remarked, as he threw open the door, of the cabin. ‘You’ll ring the bell for anything you want, though. Parsons is an awfully good fellow. And you’ll, excuse me, won’t you? I’m on duty.’
He hurried up on deck, and in a few moments the destroyer was clear of the harbour and tearing across the Channel into the sombre blackness of the night. Huge waves, with a thunderous roar, swept her decks. The spray leapt high above the tops of her squat funnels, from which flashed little jets of flame. Suzanne, driven from the cabin by the craving for air, stood half-way up the companion-way, looking into the blackness. Here and there, a star seemed to reel across the face of the sky and more than once a cloud of spray swept over her head. Unhesitatingly, as though driven by some superhuman hand, they ploughed their way through the black wall of space to their destination. After the turmoil of the Channel, their slow gliding up to the side of the dock seemed almost ghostlike. Suzanne felt almost as though she herself were breathless as she stood at last upon the soaking deck. There were a couple of dim lights and a few shadowy figures upon the quay. The young officer who had spoken to her at Boulogne, stood by her side.
‘We are throwing a gangway across for you, Miss de Freyne. I’m afraid we gave you rather a rough crossin
g.’
‘I do not mind it,’ she declared. ‘I was only anxious to come quickly. Do you know if I shall be able to get on to London at once?’
‘There will be a special for the General,’ he told her. ‘They’ll probably take you, too.’
The gangway was thrown across. The young man saluted and Suzanne stepped on to the rain-sodden dock. An official stepped up to her at once.
‘Miss de Freyne?’ he inquired.
‘Yes?’
‘There is a special waiting here for General Matravers. I have had instructions to attach a coach for you.’
‘That is very delightful!’ she exclaimed. ‘Shall I follow you?’
The man piloted her across the track and handed her into an ordinary first-class compartment attached to the waiting train.
‘Sorry we’ve had to give the saloon to General Matravers,’ he explained. ‘Will you have any tea or coffee, or anything to eat?’
She gave an order to the refreshment boy whom he summoned, and threw herself down with a sigh of content into the corner seat.
Presently a tall man in khaki, with his arm in a sling and leaning upon a stick, came up the platform, followed by two junior officers. He was shown at once into the saloon and a little murmur of animated conversation arose. Five minutes later the train glided away, leaving the two junior officers disconsolate upon the long, wooden platform, passed through the two stations, and, gathering speed at every moment, rushed away northwards.
Suzanne had more than once boasted that she had no nerves. She finished her coffee and sandwiches, lit a cigarette and curled herself up in her corner. For a few moments she looked out into the darkness, watching the scanty lights. Then her eyes turned, entirely by chance, towards the door which connected her carriage with the saloon. They had no sooner rested upon it than a queer, inexplicable sense of uneasiness crept over her. She tried to look away from it, to look out of the opposite window, to interest herself in the evening paper. She read a line or two, then found herself slowly lowering the sheet, found herself peering over the top towards that closed door of dark red mahogany with its brass handle. She threw the paper down, walked to the end of the carriage and back again. She must be going mad, she told herself. The only occupant of that saloon was a wounded soldier of great distinction, a General whose deeds in the earlier stages of the war had made history. He was alone there without even an A.D.C., and in any case the door was probably locked. What cause of uneasiness for her could there be in his proximity? She fought against her fit of nerves valiantly, but she found herself tearing the paper into small pieces, crumbling the remains of her roll between her fingers, sipping desperately the remnants of her cold coffee. And all the time her eyes seemed glued upon that brass door-knob. If it should move! She set her teeth to keep from screaming. When the thing really happened, it seemed to bring, to a certain extent, release from her hysterical fears. Yet for the first few seconds it paralyzed her. The handle turned, slowly and deliberately. The door was pushed open towards her. A man looked in, stooping by reason of his height, a lean, gaunt man clad in the uniform of a General. He looked at her for a moment without speech. Then he came into the compartment and closed the door behind him.
‘What do you want?’ she asked hoarsely.
He saluted mechanically.
‘I am General Matravers,’ he announced. ‘May I sit down?’
She glanced at the communication cord—it was on the distant side of the carnage. Why she should have been afraid of him she could not tell, yet she felt as though she had never been in such danger in her life as when he took the seat opposite to her.
‘I am General Matravers,’ he repeated. ‘You have heard of me, perhaps?’
‘But naturally,’ she assented. ‘We have all read of your wonderful exploits at Mons.’
He moistened his lips with his tongue. His face seemed curiously dried up, his eyes were hard, his features grim and bony. He presented somehow a queer impression of lifelessness.
‘Mons!’ he muttered ruminatingly. ‘You’ve never been to Hell, have you, young lady?’
‘Not yet,’ she answered, watching him closely.
‘That was the beginning of it,’ he went on. ‘We need a Dante, young lady, to sing to us of those days, when the winds were driven from the face of the earth by the screeching of the shells and the roar and the clash of the guns, and they seemed to be always nearer… . Every foot of ground was red with blood, the blood of our dear soldiers, and one thought of the people at home. … I know men who lost their reason at Mons.’
‘It must have been terrible,’ she faltered.
He sat opposite to her, nervously opening and closing the interlocked fingers of his hands.
‘You know why I am coming home?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Medals enough here, you see, for a field-marshal, and I am sent home in disgrace.’
She murmured something to which he paid no attention whatever.
‘I left my two A.D.C.‘s at Folkestone,’ he went on, ‘forbade them to enter the train. They are worried about me. Perhaps they are right. You see, it was at—but we don’t mention names—my headquarters last week. It was the night before our advance. You read about that. I won’t mention the name of the place. We called it a partial success. But for the thing I am going to tell you, it might have been the turning point of the war. The attack failed—my fault.’
‘I read that your division did splendidly,’ she remarked.
Again he moistened his dry lips. His hands were shaking now by his side; he seemed like a man on the verge of paralysis.
‘This is what happened,’ he continued. ‘I was at headquarters, my own headquarters. My orderly reported a Staff Officer from the French headquarters. He came in, a typical-looking young French soldier, wearing the uniform of one of their best regiments, one of those which I knew were in the division which was to join up with ours in the morning. He was tall and dark, with a thin, black moustache, long, narrow eyes, a scar on his right cheek, sallow, and with a queer habit of swinging his left arm. He brought me some intelligible, perfectly coherent verbal instructions, asked a few questions as to my plans for the next day, gave me a personal message from the French General commanding the division, saluted, got back into his motor-car and drove off. And I thought no more about it until we found out that our whole scheme of attack was known to the enemy, and that they were prepared for us at every point. He was a German. We were sold. Thousands of my men were lost through that. My fault. He was a German. Are you a German, young lady?’
‘Ah, but no!’ she exclaimed, shrinking a little back.
‘You are not wholly English.’
‘I am half French and half English,’ she told him.
‘The French are good people,’ he went on, relapsing into his former far-away tone, ‘very fine people. They can fight too, and they can tell Germans when they see them. That is why I am going home—because I couldn’t. I’ve sworn that the next German I see I’ll kill. You’re not a German, are you?’
‘I told you just now,’ she reminded him quietly, ‘that I am half French and half English—mostly French. I am in the service of the French Government at the present moment, trying to help you, General.’
‘Good girl,’ he said absently. ‘I thought there might have been a German in here when I heard someone moving. If I can’t find one, I suppose I must shoot myself.’
He took out a little revolver and examined it. He opened the breech and she saw that it was fully loaded.
‘May I look?’ she asked.
He handed it to her at once. The window by which they sat was half down. She calmly threw it out. He looked at her in a mildly-vexed manner.
‘You should not have done that, young lady,’ he expostulated. ‘I was very fond of that revolver. Besides, how am I to kill myself now?’
‘I should wait,’ she advised him. ‘When you get to London you will easily find Germans—too many of them.’
He shook his head.
‘But I’v
e nothing to kill them with, and I’ve left my army behind. I am sent home, he added, with a sudden hoarse pathos.
Her sense of personal fear had passed. She knew that the dangerous moment, if indeed there had been one, lay behind.
‘There is so much work to be done in England,’ she said.
He seemed to be looking through the carriage windows; his hands were twitching horribly.
‘Those nights,’ he muttered, ‘when we thought that an hour’s rest had come, and the red fires came spitting from our flanks just when we thought ourselves safe, when we thought them far and away behind… .’
His words became unintelligible. He sat quite quiet. Presently, to her joy, she saw a carpet of lights on either side and knew that they were running into London.
‘You had better get back to your saloon,’ she said. ‘We shall be at Charing Cross in a few minutes, and there will probably be someone to meet you.’
He rose obediently to his feet. The tears were in her eyes as he turned away with a stiff little salute, and, stooping low, disappeared through the doorway. Then she leaned back with a long-drawn sigh of relief. It was a strange little episode, another of the little adventures which gave colour to her life. She leaned out of the window and saw the last of him as they drew up. He was met by an officer and an elderly lady. She saw him pass out and take his place in a waiting motor-car. Then she stepped out herself, handed her bag to a porter and was conducted to a taxicab.
* * * * *
Suzanne sat, the next afternoon, under the trees at Ranelagh with Lavendale. She leaned back in her chair and breathed a little sigh of contentment.
‘And you, my friend,’ she asked, ‘what have you been doing?’
‘Nothing,’ he answered. ‘I am waiting for a man to arrive from America. His coming, I fancy, will provide me with work, but until then there is nothing for me. To pass the time while you were in France, I went over to Holland last week.’
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