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

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “Give the young lady a chair inside,” he ordered. “I will see Mr. Lavendale.”

  She was ushered into a bedroom, and a moment or two later she heard Lavendale announced. Then George returned, handed her some American papers and disappeared into the bathroom beyond. She rose to her feet as he closed the door. The sound of Lavendale’s voice was muffled and inaudible. Suddenly her heart gave a little jump. George came out of the bathroom with a coat upon his arm, threw open the bureau and searched there for something. As he stood there, a thin, black silk pocket-book slipped from the breast-pocket of the coat and fell unnoticed on to the carpet. A moment later he closed the bureau, laid the coat carefully out upon the bed and withdrew into the bathroom, closing the door. Suzanne held her breath for a single moment. Then she stole across the floor, seized the pocket-book, opened the bedroom door stealthily, and with a little gulp of relief passed out into the corridor. She ran up the stairs to her own room, gripping the pocket-book in her hand. Arrived there, she locked the door, took up the telephone, and spoke to the hall-porter.

  “Please don’t let Mr. Lavendale go out,” she directed. “When he comes downstairs send him up to my room—say that I wish to see him at once.”

  She slipped the pocket-book into the bosom of her dress and waited. In a few minutes there was a ring at the bell. Lavendale stood outside.

  “Come in at once,” she begged.

  He hesitated, but she dragged him in.

  “Do not be foolish!” she exclaimed. “Shut the door. You have just left Mr. Kessner?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “Why did you go there?”

  “To see if you were getting yourself into any trouble,” he answered grimly.

  She drew the pocket-book from the bosom of her gown.

  “Listen,” she said, “I am terrified. I picked this up from the bedroom. It slipped out of the pocket of his dinner-coat. I haven’t even dared to look inside.”

  He moved to the door and locked it, came back, and shook the contents out on to the table. There was a great roll of notes, some visiting cards, some notes copied from a German time-table, a long list of names, and a single letter on thick, cream paper. Suzanne stole to the door on tiptoe and stood there, listening. There was no sound in the corridor, no sound in the apartment at all except a smothered exclamation or two from Lavendale. Presently he called to her. He was holding the papers in his hand.

  “Miss de Freyne,” he whispered, “listen.”

  She caught him by the sleeve. There was a ponderous knocking at the door, the shrill summons of the bell rang through the room. Lavendale hesitated for a moment. Then he slipped the book into his inside pocket and threw open the door. Mr. Kessner’s black servant was standing outside.

  “The master has sent his compliments,” he said, “and would be glad to know—”

  Mr. Kessner himself came quietly in and closed the door behind him. There was a queer little gleam in his eyes, but his manner was unruffled. He tried the handle of the door to be sure that it was closed. Then he turned toward Suzanne.

  “Will a million dollars,” he asked, “buy me back my pocket-book?”

  Lavendale drew it from his pocket and promptly handed it across.

  “My dear Mr. Kessner,” he remonstrated, “you are surely not serious! Miss de Freyne was just explaining her little escapade to me and I was coming in search of you.”

  Mr. Kessner took no notice of either of them for several moments. He ran through the contents of the pocket-book, then he slowly thrust it into his pocket.

  “I shall have the pleasure,” he said, “on Friday night? You will not forget—the Ritz at eight o’clock?”

  He made a little bow—an ugly, awkward bow—and left the room. There was nothing in his manner to indicate what his sensations were. Lavendale and Suzanne looked at one another.

  “Was there anything very important there?” she asked.

  “Nothing from your point of view, but everything from mine,” he told her. “There was a list of forty-two names of German-Americans, each giving a million dollars toward a specific purpose. There was a plan of a few remaining estates in a certain part of Brazil, still to be purchased to establish what at some seasonable juncture should be declared to be a German colony. Some slight trouble with the Government of Brazil, a German gun-boat, and behold!—German South America and to hades with the Monroe Doctrine! A very admirable scheme, only—”

  “Only what?”

  “I don’t fancy that, thanks to you, those estates will ever come into the market,” he remarked drily, “not for a German purchaser, at any rate.”

  She glanced uneasily toward the door.

  “Mr. Lavendale,” she said earnestly, “I am terrified!”

  “Why?”

  “I am afraid of Mr. Kessner,” she confessed. “He took it much too quietly.”

  Lavendale shrugged his shoulders.

  “A man of his temperament,” he said, “seldom wastes his time or his emotions. He was playing for a great stake which he knows now that he will lose. At the same time, he has lost purely through accident.”

  She suddenly smiled.

  “I wonder,” she exclaimed, “whether he really expects us to dine with him at the Ritz on Friday night!”

  “We’ll go and see, at any rate,” Lavendale declared.

  6. THE MACHINATIONS OF MR. COURLANDER

  Table of Contents

  AMBROSE LAVENDALE, attaché of the American Diplomatic Service, glanced at his thin gold watch and replaced it in his waistcoat pocket.

  “Three minutes past eight,” he remarked. “Half a dozen pairs of gloves for me, I think. Shall I go in and see about a table or would you rather dine somewhere else?”

  Suzanne de Freyne made a little grimace. They were in the foyer of the Ritz Hotel and she was wearing a wonderful new gown.

  “It is most disappointing,” she declared. “I had made up my mind to conquest.”

  “I am very impressionable,” Lavendale assured her.

  She shook her head petulantly.

  “It is not you whom I wish to subjugate, remember.”

  “I am too easy a victim, I suppose,” Lavendale sighed. “I am afraid that to-night, however, you will have to be content with poor me.”

  Her face suddenly changed, a brilliant smile parted her lips, she glanced at him triumphantly. Lavendale looked over his shoulder. Mr. Kessner, the German-American millionaire, was coming toward them with outstretched hand.

  “You’ve lost your gloves,” Suzanne murmured under her breath.

  Mr. Kessner greeted his two guests in the most matter-of-fact fashion.

  “I must apologise for being a few moments late,” he said. “It is rather crowded here to-night and I thought it best to go and see that no mistake had been made about my table. I should like, if I may, to introduce to you Mr. Courlander, a friend of mine from New York. Mr. Courlander is dining with us.”

  The two young people murmured something suitable. Mr. Courlander turned out to be a dark, heavy-browed man, clean-shaven, and of a taciturn disposition. The little party made their way in to dinner. They were ushered to a small round table in the best quarter of the room, a table lavishly arranged with flowers and flanked with a couple of ice-pails, from which gold-foiled bottles were protruding. Suzanne gave a little sigh of content as she sank into her chair, and looked around her appreciatively.

  “I have always observed,” she said softly, “that the men of your country, Mr. Kessner, know so well how to entertain.”

  “And also,” Mr. Kessner remarked, blinking slightly, “how to select their guests.”

  The service of dinner proceeded. Mr. Kessner, in his dress-suit, which seemed several sizes too large for him, appeared somehow to have become a more insignificant person than ever. In this ultra-fashionable restaurant, full of well-set-up men and soldiers in uniform, he seemed almost like some by-product, something not altogether human. His very insignificance compelled a certain amount o
f notice; conferred upon him, perhaps, an air of distinctiveness if not of distinction. He was Kessner, the multi-millionaire, probably over to secure contracts from the Government. The aroma of wealth hovered around his table. The term “German-American” was unused—to few people there did it convey any significance. The little party talked of every subject under the sun except the war. Mr. Courlander, notwithstanding his heavy appearance, was an excellent raconteur. Dinner was more than half-way through before their host changed his attitude.

  “You two young people did not, by any chance, expect me to break my appointment for this evening, did you?” he asked.

  “We had a bet about it,” Suzanne admitted.

  “Tell me who wagered in my favour and I will tell you which is the cleverer of the two,” he offered.

  “It was I who thought that you would come,” she declared. He bowed.

  “After all,” he argued, “why not? Listen,” he went on, leaning across the table. “Courlander here does not count. He is in my confidence. He was, indeed, at one time my private secretary. To the world I am an American. To our young friend here,” he went on, indicating Lavendale, “who appears to have partly discarded his diplomatic career for an excursion into the secret service of his country, I am a German-American. He follows me to Germany. He knows that I have a conference with the Kaiser. He is all agog with the importance of it. He comes back. He consults with you, my dear young lady, and with marvellous subtlety he asks me to lunch and exposes me most unfairly to the trial of your charms. I succumb—what more natural?”

  He leaned back in his chair while a portly maître d’hôtel superintended the filling of their glasses with champagne and explained to him the mysteries of the course which was being served. Neither Suzanne nor Lavendale found it easy to continue their meal unmoved. Their eyes were fixed upon this insignificant little man who spoke with such deliberation, such a queer little curl of the lips, such obvious enjoyment of his own thoughts.

  “Your deep-laid scheme,” he went on, “was crowned with complete success. The poor little American was robbed of his secret. By this time it is probably known in Washington. There is only one little fly in the ointment. A private intimation has already been given through our ambassador in Washington to the American Government that unless America at once abandons her position of favouring the Allies at the expense of Germany and Austria, Germany will refuse now and for always henceforth to respect and accept the Monroe Doctrine.”

  There was a moment’s breathless silence. Then Lavendale drained his glass.

  “You mean that such a pronouncement has already been made?” he murmured.

  “It has already been made,” Mr. Kessner assented. “Further, you can understand quite easily, I am sure, that the exact locality in which this break should take place, although interesting, is not of vital importance. I do not wish to dispirit you. Yours was, without doubt, an excellent stroke of work, and I, the poor victim, am compelled to droop a diminished head. Yet I offer you this explanation so that you can see the reason why I am able to accept my defeat gracefully, to welcome you both here as my guests, to raise my glass to your beautiful eyes, mademoiselle, and to wish you, Mr. Lavendale, the further success in your profession which such subtlety and finesse deserve.”

  “Say, he’s eloquent to-night, isn’t he?” Mr. Courlander remarked. “Quite an epic little meeting, this. I can assure you all that I consider it an immense privilege to have been asked to join your little party this evening.”

  “My subtle friend,” Mr. Kessner continued, setting his glass down empty, “is now wondering why you were asked to join it.”

  “Not at all,” Lavendale replied. “The fame of Mr. Courlander is well known to me.”

  Their host for a single moment seemed disturbed. He recovered himself, however, almost immediately.

  “Mr. Courlander,” he went on, “as I have told you, was once my secretary. Since then, for a brief space of time, he became a criminologist. Disgusted with the coarse tendencies of crime as practised in more modern cities, he abandoned that profession to become what I might call a diplomatic detective. He is the terror of our loose-living public men and our ambitious but dishonest politicians.”

  “Our friend’s career in America,” Lavendale remarked drily, “must necessarily be a strenuous one!”

  Mr. Kessner for a moment smiled. There was no effort of humour about the gesture. It was simply a slow, sidewise parting of the lips, an index of thoughts travelling backward along a road lined with grotesque memories. He drew a heavy gold pencil from his pocket and signed the bill. Then he rose to his feet.

  “We will take our coffee outside,” he suggested. “Afterward, if it meets with, your approval, I have a box at one of the music halls—I am not sure which.”

  They lingered only a few minutes over their coffee. While they sat there, however, Mr. Kessner’s secretary, a middle-aged man with gold spectacles and an abstracted manner, brought in a note. Mr. Kessner opened it, read it carefully and tore it into small pieces. He rose, a few minutes later, joined his secretary, who was waiting on the outskirts of the little group, and walked with him twice down the entrance hall. Then he returned.

  “The car is waiting,” he announced, “if you are ready. Won’t you, my Machiavellian young friend,” he added, glancing at the scraps of paper which he had left upon the coffee table, “try and put those fragments together? I promise that you would find them interesting—more intrigue, and a very interesting one, I can assure you.” Lavendale found it hard to forgive himself later for the impulse which prompted his answer. The temptation, however, was irresistible.

  “I have no need to put them together to know the source of your message,” he replied.

  “No?” Mr. Kessner remarked politely, as he lingered for a moment over adjusting Suzanne’s coat. “There are a good many millions of people in London, are there not? Shall I give you a hundred thousand to one against naming the writer?”

  “In dollars, if you like,” Lavendale replied carelessly. “I won’t take your money, but I’ll start, then, with Baron Niko Komashi.”

  Mr. Kessner, who had half turned away, watching the result of his attentions to Suzanne, became suddenly motionless. His lips were a little parted, he seemed almost paralysed. When he turned slowly around there was a new look in his eyes. Courlander, on the other hand, did not attempt to restrain an exclamation of wonder.”

  “Baron Niko Komashi,” Kessner repeated. “Who is he?”

  Lavendale laughed easily. He was already bitterly regretting his momentary lapse.

  “Heaven knows,” he exclaimed. “The odds dazzled me.”

  They walked out to the car almost in silence. A new spirit seemed to have come to Kessner. He looked and talked differently throughout the rest of the evening’s entertainment. He seemed somehow to have lost his air of half-bantering confidence. When the time came for farewells, he looked long and earnestly into Lavendale’s face.

  “We must know one another better, young man,” was all he said.

  On their way back to her rooms, Suzanne gripped Lavendale by the arm and asked him a question.

  “What does if all mean?” she demanded. “Why did you guess Niko? Why were they both so thunderstruck?”

  “Because,” he replied, “Niko happened to be the writer of that little epistle.”

  Her large eyes gleamed at him through the semi-darkness filled with wonder.

  “But how could you possibly know that?”

  He smiled.

  “It is your responsibility,” he explained. “I noticed the perfume directly he drew the note from the envelope.”

  [In a previous adventure, Ambrose Lavendale had occasion to learn that Baron Niko always used a certain perfume—a circumstance which led to the baron being caught rifling Lavendale’s safe.]

  She laughed softly—softly at first and then heartily.

  “Why, it is most amusing!” she exclaimed. “He thinks you a necromancer. He is, I believe, a litt
le afraid of you. And that other man, all through the performance he scarcely took his eyes off you,”

  “At any rate,” Lavendale observed, “it has given me something to think about.”

  Suzanne Makes a Special Plea

  LAVENDALE, notwithstanding a nervous system almost unexampled, was possessed of curiously sensitive instincts. On his way to Pall Mall one day he was obsessed with an idea that he was being followed. He turned rather abruptly around. A tall, broad-shouldered man in dark clothes, wearing a Homburg hat and with a cigar in the corner of his mouth, waved his stick in friendly greeting.

  “This is Mr. Lavendale, isn’t it?” he remarked. “Kind of forgotten me, perhaps? My name’s Courlander. Met you with Mr. Kessner the other night.”

  “I remember you perfectly,” Lavendale acknowledged. “Very pleasant dinner we had.”

  Mr. Courlander fell into step with his companion, who had turned eastward.

  “There are few things in the world that Ludwig Kessner doesn’t understand,” he continued, “from the placing of a loan to the ordering of a dinner. He isn’t much use at eating it, poor fellow, but that’s the fault of his digestion. Too much ice-water, I tell him.”

  Lavendale nodded affably. He had no objection whatever to discussing Mr. Kessner.

  “Kind of misunderstood over here, the boss,” Courlander went on. “People think because he’s of German extraction that his sympathies are altogether that way. As a matter of fact, I can tell you, Mr. Lavendale, that people are dead wrong. At the present moment—I wouldn’t have every one know this, but you’re an American too—Mr. Kessner is making proposals for a very large purchase of British War Loan.”

  “Is he indeed!” Lavendale observed, in a tone as colourless as he could make it.

  Courlander glanced at him curiously. They were passing the Carlton and he drew his arm through Lavendale’s.

  “Just one cocktail,” he suggested.