Lavendale hesitated for a moment, inspired by an instinctive dislike of his companion. Policy, however, intervened. He accepted the invitation and followed Courlander into the smoke-room. They found two easy-chairs and the latter gave the order.
“I was talking about the boss,” he went on. “There are others besides you who have misunderstood him some, but they’ll learn the truth before the war’s over.”
“When is Mr. Kessner returning to America?” Lavendale asked.
“As soon as he can find a safe steamer,” Courlander replied. “He is a trifle nervous about the Atlantic. Say, that tastes good!”
Mr. Courlander leaned back and sipped his cocktail. Lavendale, with a word of excuse, rose to his feet and strolled across the room to speak to an acquaintance. He returned in less than a minute. Mr. Courlander was leaning back in his chair, American from top to toe. He wore a dark-grey suit of some smooth material. His square-toed boots, the little flag in his buttonhole, his prim tie, his air of genial confidence, were all eloquently and convincingly typical of his nationality. Lavendale was followed by a waiter bearing two more glasses upon a tray.
“Try my sort,” he invited. Mr. Courlander glanced at Lavendale’s glass, which was still three-quarters full. “You haven’t finished your first one yet,” he remarked.
“A little too dry for me,” Lavendale replied, placing it upon the tray and taking the full glass. “Here’s luck!”
The two men looked at one another. In Courlander’s hard brown eyes, a little narrowed by his drooping eyebrows, there was an air of fierce though latent questioning. Then with an abrupt gesture he took the glass from the tray and drank off its contents.
“You’ll forgive me if I hurry away,” Lavendale went on. “We shall meet again, I dare say, before Mr. Kessner leaves.”
“Sure!” Mr. Courlander murmured, as he picked up his hat. “I am generally to be found about the Milan. Like to have you come and dine with me some night.”
The two men parted at the hotel entrance. Lavendale got into a taxi and drove to his rooms. As he changed his clothes, he glanced through his correspondence. There was a note from Suzanne, which he read over twice:
“Dear friend: I want to see you at once. I shall be in from seven till eight. Please call.”
Lavendale glanced at the clock, hurried with his toilet, and found himself ringing the bell at the entrance door of Suzanne’s suite at half-past seven. She admitted him herself and ushered him into the little sitting-room, which had been transformed almost into a bower of deep red roses.
“Mr. Kessner,” she exclaimed, pointing around, “with a carte-de-visite! You see what he says?—‘From a forgiving enemy!’”
Lavendale glanced at the roses with a frown upon his forehead.
“I’d like to throw them out of the window,” he declared frankly.
“Do not be foolish,” she laughed. “Listen: You are dining somewhere?”
“At our own shop,” he replied. “They ask me about once in every two months, to fill up.”
“I wanted to speak to you about that man Courlander,” she went on.
“Well?”
“Lawrence Dowell—the American newspaper woman, you know—was in here yesterday and stayed to lunch. We saw Mr. Courlander in the distance and she told me about him. Do you know that he was convicted of murder?—that it was only through Mr. Kessner’s influence that he was taken out of Sing Sing? He was a police-sergeant and his name was Drayton. They say that there were several cases against him of having men put out of the way who had made themselves obnoxious to some political gang. The evidence against him was quite clear, yet Mr. Kessner not only managed to have him released, but made him his private secretary.”
Lavendale stood for a moment looking out of the window with his hands in his pockets. Then he turned slowly around.
“About an hour ago,” he said, “this fellow Courlander tried to doctor a cocktail I was drinking in the Carlton smoking-room.”
“What!” she exclaimed.
“I met him at the corner of St. James’s Street,” he went on. “I had been in the club with Niko Komashi and I am perfectly certain that he had been dogging me. We walked along Pall Mall and he pressed me to go in and have a cocktail. I happened to cross the room to speak to Willoughby and on the way glanced into the mirror. I saw Courlander’s hand suddenly flash over my glass. It was so quick that, even though I saw it myself, I could scarcely believe it, and I’m certain that no one else in the room could have noticed it. When I got back, I made some excuse and ordered another cocktail.”
She seemed suddenly to lose some part of that serenity which as yet he had never seen even ruffled. She was distinctly paler.
“You must be careful—please promise that you will be careful,” she begged.
“This isn’t New York,”’ he reminded her.
“But that man is a perfect devil,” she persisted earnestly. “He is a professional murderer. He has no feeling, no mercy, and he is so cunning. And behind him there is Kessner and all his millions.”
Lavendale shrugged his shoulders.
“All the millions that were ever owned,” he said, “wouldn’t help a man over here against the law. I am not afraid of Courlander. There is nothing he could try which I am not prepared for, and if it comes to a hand-to-hand struggle, I don’t think I have anything to fear from him.”
“I don’t like it,” she told him frankly. “You will be on your guard, won’t you?”
His voice softened.
“Of course I will; but, Miss de Freyne—Suzanne—why don’t you like it? Why do you worry about me at all?”
She was silent for a moment. She had turned a little toward the window, her eyes had lost their usual directness. He took a step forward.
“It isn’t because you care a little about me, by any chance, is it?” he asked.
She gave him her hand. Then she turned around and he saw that her eyes were soft with tears.
“Suzanne!” he faltered.
She turned toward him. There was something very sweet about her little gesture, something yielding and yet restraining.
“Won’t you please forget all this for just a little time?” she pleaded. “To tell you the truth, I feel almost like a traitress when I even let myself think of such things now that my country is in such agony, when everything that is dear to me in life seems imperilled. You have your work, too, and I have mine. Perhaps the end may be happy.”
He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them.
“I will obey,” he promised, turning toward the door.
“And you will be careful—please be careful,” she begged, as she let him out and squeezed his arm for a moment. “There! Now you must go to your dinner. You look very nice and I am sure you will sit next some one altogether charming, and perhaps you will forget. But I shall like to think of this evening.”
The Chloroform That Failed
PRACTICAL, hard-headed, and with a sound hold upon the everyday episodes of life, Lavendale nevertheless passed through the remainder of that evening with his head in the clouds. He was vaguely conscious of the other twenty-three guests who shared with him the hospitality of the Ambassador—a few diplomats, a professor from Harvard University and his wife, two other distinguished Americans, with a sprinkling of their English connections. He sat next a distant relative of his own, an American girl who had married an Englishman, and his abstraction was perhaps ministered to by the fact that conversation from him was entirely unlooked for. In the reception rooms afterward he found himself able to speak for a moment with Washburn.
“Have you seen anything of Mr. Kessner?” he asked.
The other made a little grimace.
“Very little,” he replied. “The chief and he don’t exactly hit it off. I heard a rumour the other day that he might be going back to Germany.”
Lavendale played a couple of rubbers of bridge and was invited to take a cigar in the library before he left. It was shortly after one
o’clock before he stepped into the taxicab which a servant had summoned for him.
“Seventeen Sackville Street,” Lavendale directed. He threw himself back in the corner of the vehicle and they glided off. A drizzling rain was falling and the streets were almost empty. He leaned forward in his place to light a cigarette. That fact and his habits of observation probably saved his life. He realised suddenly that this was no ordinary taxicab in which he was travelling. It conformed to none of the usual types. The cushions were more luxurious, the appointments unusual. He sat for a moment thinking. The chauffeur was driving at a fair pace, but he had taken a somewhat circuitous route. Lavendale tried the doors, first on one side, then on the other. They were both fast, secured with-some sort of spring lock. Suddenly alert, he rose softly to his feet, crouched for a moment upon the back seat, and thrust his head and shoulders through the window. It was easy enough to wriggle out, to descend and allow the vehicle to proceed to its destination, wherever that might be, without its passenger, but the love of adventure was upon him. He set his teeth, sank back once more in his corner, half closed his eyes. To all appearance he might have been a tired diner-out prematurely asleep. As a matter of fact, every nerve and sense was keenly on the alert, and his right fingers were locked around the butt of a small revolver.
Without protest or comment, he saw himself conducted by a roundabout way into a maze of quiet streets. Then, with a little thrill of anticipation, he saw a man who had been loitering near an entry turn and follow the vehicle, which at his coming had slackened speed. The man was wearing some sort of rubber-soled shoes and his footsteps upon the street were noiseless. Through his half-closed eyes Lavendale was nevertheless conscious of his approach, realised his soft spring onto the footboard of the car, was more than prepared for the sudden flick in his face of a sodden towel reeking with chloroform. His right fist shot out, the figure on the footboard went reeling back into the street. Even then, prepared though he had been, Lavendale for a moment gasped for breath. The car, with a sudden grinding of the brakes, came to a standstill. They were at the top of a darkly lit street and not a soul was in sight. Lavendale thrust his foot through the glass in front of him, shattering it all around the driver. The man half sprang to his feet, but Lavendale’s swift speech arrested him.
“Sit where you are,” he ordered. “Never mind about that other fellow. Drive me to the Milan Hotel. You know the way, so do I. If you go a yard out of it, feel this!” He suddenly dug the muzzle of his revolver into the man’s neck. The chauffeur, with an oath, crouched forward.
“Do as I ‘tell you,” Lavendale thundered, “or I’ll shoot you where you sit! Remember, you’re not in New York. Do as I tell you.”
Once more the car glided off. They turned almost immediately into Piccadilly, across Leicester Square, passed up the Strand, and drew up at the Milan. Lavendale put his head through the window as the porter came out from the court entrance.
“I can’t open this door,” he said. “Ask the fellow in front how to do it.”
The porter stared with surprise at the shattered glass. The driver slipped down, touched a spring on the outside, and the door flew open. He had pulled his cap deeper over his face. Lavendale looked at him for a moment steadfastly.
“Wait for me,” he ordered. He walked into the court, rang for the lift and ascended to the fourth floor. He stepped out and rang the bell at Number Seventy-four. For a moment there was no answer. He rang it again. Then a light suddenly flashed up in the room and Mr. Kessner, fully dressed, stood upon the threshold. He gazed, speechless, at Lavendale, who pushed forward across the threshold, holding the door open with one hand.
“Mr. Kessner,” he said, “your ruffian with the chloroform is lying on his back somewhere near Sackville Street. I shouldn’t wonder if his spine was broken. Your sham chauffeur is downstairs with his sham taxicab. I made him bring me here. You understand?”
The tip of Mr. Kessner’s tongue had moistened his lips. His lined yellow face seemed more than ever like the face of some noxious animal.
“You are drunk, young man,” he said.
Lavendale raised his arm and Mr. Kessner stepped back.
“Don’t be afraid,” Lavendale went on scornfully. “I am not going to shoot you. When the day of reckoning comes between you and me, if ever it does, I shall take you by the throat and wring the life out of your body. But I am here now to tell you this. Before I sleep, a full account of this night’s adventure, instigated by you and your assassin Courlander, will be written down and deposited in a safe place. If anything happens to me, if I disappear even for a dozen hours, that paper will be opened. You may get me, even now, you and Courlander between you, only you’ll have to pay the price. See? In England it’s a mighty ugly price!”
Mr. Kessner sucked the breath in between his teeth. Then, as though with some superhuman effort, he recovered himself.
“Say, young fellow, won’t you come in and talk this out?” he invited.
Lavendale laughed drily.
“‘Won’t you walk into my parlour?’” he quoted mockingly. “No, thank you, Mr. Kessner! You know where we stand now. Let me give you a word of warning. London isn’t New York. A very little of this sort of thing and you’ll find the hand of a law that can’t be bought or bribed or evaded in any way tapping upon your shoulders. You understand?”
Mr. Kessner yawned.
“You are a foolish young man,” he said, “and you’ve been reading a little too much modern fiction.”
He slammed the door, and Lavendale descended to the street. The courtyard was empty.
“The car didn’t wait for me, I suppose?” he inquired of the porter.
“The fellow drove off directly you went upstairs, sir. I shouted after him, but he took no notice. Shall I get you a taxi, sir?”
Lavendale fumbled in his pocket, found a cigarette, and lit it.
“Thank you,” he replied, “I think I’ll walk.”
7. THE INDISCREET TRAVELLER
Table of Contents
AMBROSE LAVENDALE walked slowly down the sunny side of Pall Mall. It was early in August, and for the first time he seemed to notice some reflection in the faces of the passers-by of the burden under which the country was groaning. The usual fashionable little throng about the entrance to the Carlton was represented by a few sombrely-dressed women and one or two wounded warriors. The glances of the pedestrians toward the contents bills of the evening papers had in them a certain furtive eagerness, the fear of evil news triumphing now over the sanguine optimism of earlier days. It was just at that tragical epoch when Russia, to the amazement of the whole world, was being swept back from her frontier cities, when there were murmurs of an investment of Petrograd. Lavendale, in his light-grey suit and straw hat, sunburnt, over six feet tall, broad and athletic, seemed somehow a strange figure as he passed along through streets which appeared destitute of a single man under middle-age who was not in khaki. The recruiting-sergeant at the corner of Trafalgar Square, where Lavendale paused for a moment to cross the road, caught his eye and smiled insinuatingly.
“Fine figure for a uniform, sir,” he ventured.
“I am an alien,” Lavendale replied, watching a troop of recruits pass by.
“American, sir?”
“That’s right,” Lavendale admitted.
The sergeant looked him up and down and sighed.
“America’s a country, begging your pardon, sir, that don’t seem to have much stomach for fighting,” he remarked, as the young man passed on.
Lavendale crossed the street with a slight frown upon his forehead. He made his way to the War Office and found Captain Merrill in his room alone. The two men exchanged the greetings of intimate friends.
“Say, Reggie,” Lavendale began, “you folks are getting kind of nervous, aren’t you? A recruiting sergeant in Trafalgar Square has just gently intimated to me that I belong to a country which has no stomach for fighting.”
Merrill grinned as he tossed his cigarette
case over.
“Well,” he remarked, “you don’t seem to be exactly spoiling for the fray, do you?”
Lavendale lit a cigarette.
“Look here,” he said, “it’s all very well for you fellows to talk. You’ve got the war fever in your blood. You’re in it deep yourselves and there’s a sort of gloomy satisfaction in seeing every one else in the same box. The chap who goes out to provoke a fight is the worst, of course, but the one who springs up and reaches for his gun at the first chance of joining in is playing his game, isn’t he?”
“Perhaps you are right,” Merrill admitted.
“I’m not telling you or any one else exactly what my opinion is about America’s policy,” Lavendale continued. “I’ll only remind you that, even when those truculent forefathers of ours went out to fight, they stopped to put on their armour. Is there anything fresh?”
“I don’t know,” was the somewhat doubtful reply. “There is a queer sort of feeling of apprehension everywhere this morning. The Chief’s been round to see the Prime Minister and on to the Admiralty. There’s a rumour that he went round to Buckingham Palace, too. Looks as if there were something up.”
“You know all about it, I suppose,” Lavendale remarked quietly.
“Not a thing!”
The young American diplomat knocked the ash from his cigarette.
“The history of this war,” he went on, “will make mighty interesting reading, but there’s another history, a history that will never be written, the history of the unrecorded things. Gad, that would make people gossip if they could get hold of only a few chapters of it! You know there’s something strange afoot, Reggie. So do I, though we sit here lying to one another. I doubt whether the man in the street will ever know.”
Merrill selected another cigarette. “I don’t see where you come in here, Ambrose.”
“Neither do I,” the other agreed. “Still, the truth comes to light in strange ways sometimes. Last night I had a cable from a friend in Petrograd, advising me to buy Russian securities.”
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